The Pentagon says that President Trump’s freeze on hiring new federal workers applies to civilians who work for the Department of Defense, ending two days of confusion when it was unclear if civilians working for the military would be considered “military personnel.”
The presidential memorandum, signed Monday, applies to most civilian employees of the executive branch, and orders that “No vacant positions existing at noon on January 22, 2017, may be filled and no new positions may be created, except in limited circumstances.”
The memo had an exception for military personnel, political appointees, and non-career senior executive service employees.
The Pentagon sought guidance from the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget about whether the ban applied to civilian personnel positions in the Defense Department.
The answer came back late on Tuesday, and the Pentagon issued a clarification in the form of a one-sentence statement: “The Presidential Memorandum places a freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees, and applies to all executive departments and agencies, including civilian employees within the DoD.”
The president’s order does allow the head of any executive department or agency to exempt positions from the hiring freeze that he or she deems necessary to meet national security or public safety responsibilities.
The DoD employs more than 750,000 civilian workers worldwide.
