Interior Department staff Monday had no information on when a hiring freeze impacting seasonal and full-time positions at the National Park Service will be lifted.

The freeze, implemented across the federal government while the Trump administration looks for ways to cut the federal workforce, left an untold number of individuals hoping to land summer jobs with the Park Service in limbo.

"I am a current permanent employee of the National Park Service who had a job offer rescinded exactly one month before my scheduled start date," one of the affected employees told the Traveler. "To have my job rescinded so close to starting was particularly difficult for me; I had already signed a lease on a new apartment, so am now out the deposit I had already paid for that place, plus the costs associated with breaking the lease, likely at least $3,000, total. My finances already run on slim margins, so this setback will not be easy for me to recover from. Fortunately, I will be fine overall; I still have my current job and have enough savings to weather this trouble."

The hiring freeze, which reportedly could affect as many as 1,400 individuals, touches both seasonal hires and permanent positions. Each year the Park Service hires an estimated 7,500 workers for the busy summer season. There also are a good number of permanent positions, reaching into the ranks of superintendents, that won't be filled unless the freeze is lifted, either across the board or for specific positions.

Under President Trump's executive order implementing the freeze, staff at the Office of Management and Budget and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency have 90 days to "submit a plan to reduce the size of the federal government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition," an Interior spokesperson told the Traveler. "Once a plan to reduce the federal workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition is developed, departmental leadership will work closely with its bureaus to execute personnel decisions in a manner that best supports the mission of the department and the policy priorities of the administration."

The message the freeze was sending to the Park Service workforce, at least according to the employee who reached out to the Traveler, is "how little my employer values the work that I do. I have helped save lives on search and rescue incidents, kept government buildings open through the pandemic, and given long hours and whole seasons of my life to this job because, for better or worse, I believe in the things the Park Service stands for. I have often accepted the hardships that come with this job as the cost for getting to do something I love. But this latest setback strikes me as particularly unfair because there was no way to anticipate or plan for this.

"... I didn't enter this career expecting to get rich, but I did think I would at least be treated with respect. It is not respectful to upend people's lives for a political agenda."