Ex-DOGE Employees Transition to State and Local Government Roles

Swift Summary:

• Liz Kiriakou, a former contractor for USAID, was fired after returning from maternity leave amid mass layoffs caused by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
• The Trump management laid off tens of thousands of federal workers this spring, saturating the job market with specialized workers lacking experience outside federal sectors.
• Efforts by states and nonprofits to recruit laid-off federal employees into state/local roles have gained momentum. Programs like Civic Match are helping match skills to new local government positions.
• Some states like New York and Maryland have launched streamlined hiring campaigns that resulted in notable recruitment success; for example, Maryland has hired 150 former federal workers for state jobs.
• Challenges include lower wages in state-level roles compared to the private sector and difficulty translating specialized skills into broader resumes and interviews, as described by several affected individuals.

Indian Opinion Analysis:
The mass layoffs impacting U.S. civil service reveal notable economic consequences tied to public administration shifts that ripple through other labor markets globally due to interconnected systems involving aid programs like USAID-which influences India among others via assistance initiatives targeting health crises such as HIV/AIDS eradication strategies led earlier key drivers handling change-individual-country localization paths define