- Federal workers looking to move to the private sector could face increased challenges.
- Economic uncertainty and a dearth of middle-management roles could hurt job seekers’ prospects.
- Universities, which have been landing spots for government workers, are also pausing hiring.
Federal workers trying to trek to the private sector could find they’ve walked into a minefield.
Lackluster corporate hiring, a shrinking middle-management job market, and pullbacks by universities are making the route to employment beyond federal agencies trickier to navigate than not that long ago, workplace observers told Business Insider.
“Right now is absolutely a very difficult time for the government workers that need to go back on the job market,” Andy Wu, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, told BI.
One reason is that, for several years, it’s been a tough job market for many people, especially those with desk jobs. Now, the US job market appears to be “frozen by an environment of economic uncertainty,” Indeed economist Cory Stahle recently wrote on LinkedIn.
Goodbye, middle management jobs
As artificial intelligence burrows its way deeper into more workplaces, some employers are reconsidering how many people they need in service jobs and middle-management positions, Wu said.
“For many of these long-tenured government employees, that’s the kind of role that they would be looking for,” he said, referring to midlevel management jobs.
For years, some companies have been trying to scrub management layers from their org charts in hopes of trimming costs.
Growing uncertainty over the economic fallout from tariffs and a jittery stock market could push companies to cut added management layers, Angela T. Hall, an associate professor at Michigan State University’s School of Human Resources and Labor Relations, told BI.
“When we see recession or hints of recession, what do they do? They lay off middle managers,” she said.
Hall said that would likely be bad news for longtime government workers who have historically been good fits for those types of roles.
A different pace
Extended service in government can also present unique challenges. Government workers might have to overcome concerns that they’re not up to the rigors of business, for example.
“The government has a different way of and pace of working than the private sector,” Wu said. That’s especially true, he said, in high-growth areas of the private sector.
“Even if they could get the roles there, I think there’s always going to be a question of culture fit,” Wu said.
Job seekers who’ve worked for many years in the government could also face age bias, Amanda Augustine, a career coach with Careerminds, told BI.
“Any employee who’s in a certain age group and is looking for work is always going to feel some challenges,” she said.
Discriminating against older workers based on their age is illegal, yet it’s a concern for some job seekers.
Other paths look questionable
Another possible escape route for one-time federal workers isn’t looking as promising as it once had.
Some NGOs and universities, facing drops in federal outlays, are hoisting their ladders. More than a dozen top schools, from Brown to Harvard, recently halted hiring because of uncertainty around funding, according to reports.
Some are even cutting. On Thursday, Johns Hopkins University said it would eliminate more than 2,000 jobs in the US and abroad after the federal government canceled $800 million in grants that the research powerhouse had been expecting.
Policy nonprofits and universities have traditionally been eager to attract workers with strong government experience, Laura Labovich, who runs an outplacement firm in the Washington, DC, area, told BI.
She said a greater slowdown in federal spending — if it occurs — could further gum up the job search for federal workers. That’s because it’s not uncommon for those with government time on their sheets to parlay that experience and agency knowledge to move into government contracting roles.
There could be even less demand for that type of work if the feds or an advisory group like Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency pushes through cuts to federal contracting.
Some bright spots
Yet it’s not all bad news, Labovich said. She said that because some employers are focusing on skills — and less on pedigree — that could create opportunities for veterans of the government.
Labovich said some private employers still look for workers with extensive government experience, particularly those who’ve been in management.
“A lot of companies highly value them because they are leaders,” she said.
Beyond that, a handful of states have expressed interest in hiring laid-off federal workers.
Still, some skills might be so specific that government workers could face a tough job search. While being a specialist is often a good thing, a long record of sending up weather balloons or serving as a nuclear submarine engineer could limit someone’s job prospects.
Hall pointed to the plight of a man who worked with dogs at Alaska’s Denali National Park and was laid off.
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for dog mushers,” she said.
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