Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says a top priority is to shore up morale at the department.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says a top priority is to shore up morale at the department. Alex Brandon/AP

After 16 Months, State Department Ends Hiring Freeze

New Secretary Mike Pompeo fulfills a promise he made during his confirmation.

The State Department formally lifted its hiring freeze on Tuesday, ending a moratorium that has been in place for 16 months.

Secretary Mike Pompeo announced the end of the freeze in a message to employees just weeks after his swearing in, fulfilling a promise he made during his confirmation hearing. The decision will allow the department to bring on both foreign service and civil service employees up to “current funding levels,” a State official said.

“The department's workforce is our most valuable asset,” Pompeo said. “We need our men and women on the ground, executing American diplomacy with great vigor and energy, and representing our great nation. By resuming hiring of the most gifted and qualified individuals, we will ensure that we have the right people with the right skills working to advance our U.S. national interests and executing the department's mission in an increasingly complicated and challenging world.”

The official added the secretary’s decision would give both domestic bureaus and overseas missions “the flexibility to fulfill positions that are essential” to meeting the department's goals.

Former Secretary Rex Tillerson said in April 2017—just after Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney lifted the hiring freeze President Trump had implemented on a governmentwide basis days after taking office—he was using his unilateral authority to continue the moratorium at State because he was conducting a reorganization of the department. The freeze, he said, would continue until his reforms had been fully implemented. Tillerson’s planned “redesign” was later pared back significantly and even those smaller changes were placed in limbo after his ouster.    

State had carved out numerous exemptions to the freeze across its job series, allowing the department to hire thousands of new employees despite the pause. The exemptions had become so complicated the administration officials who briefed Pompeo during the preparations for his confirmation hearing were not even sure if the freeze was still in place.

“I’ve heard different things about the exact status of the hiring freeze,” the former CIA director said during his confirmation hearing last month, adding he would not just end it but “go one further.”  

“I want the best of America, in a way that had traditionally been part of the State Department, to say ‘I want to be a professional officer at the State Department,’” Pompeo said. He explained that he spent a lot of time working on improving human capital management and recruiting at the CIA, noting the agency did not devote the proper resources to those efforts, and promised to undertake a similar endeavor at State.

Vacancies at State piled up during Tillerson’s hiring freeze. In the first eight months since Trump took office, State’s workforce declined by 6 percent. Employees on the foreign affairs rolls dropped by 12 percent. Pompeo promised to fill vacancies across the department, which he conceded were hurting morale.

“In a recent series of department briefings with team members at State, they all, to a person, expressed a hope to be empowered in their roles, and to have a clear understanding of the president’s mission,” Pompeo said. “That will be my first priority. They also shared how demoralizing it is to have so many vacancies and, frankly, not to feel relevant.”

He also promised to ask the president when State needed more resources, noting Trump always granted his requests when he did so at CIA. State actually suffered a cut of $1.8 billion for its operations and those of related agencies, though the reductions stemmed largely from cuts to the United Nations and the elimination of one-time counterterorism funding.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.