As the Trump administration cuts spending and eliminating federal jobs, National Park employees find themselves directly in the crosshairs, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.
Last week, the seasonal workers who staff 433 national parks and historical sites, including Yosemite, Death Valley and Joshua Tree, began receiving emails saying their job offers for the 2025 season had been “rescinded,” with little further explanation.
The move set off panic in the ranks of park employees and threw into limbo the vacation plans of hundreds of millions of people who visit the parks each year. On the chopping block are hundreds — and potentially thousands — of park rangers who respond to medical emergencies, as well as visitor center employees and the crews that clean bathrooms and empty garbage cans.
In many of the larger and most popular parks, seasonal workers outnumber year-round permanent employees, making it hard to imagine how the parks will function without them, according to one supervising ranger who asked that her name not be used.
In addition to 63 named parks — nine of which are in California, more than any other state — the National Park Service administers 370 other sites, including national monuments, national historic sites and national battlefields.
Read the full story at the Los Angeles Times.
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Thank you, RV Travel! Yes, this certainly seems a very real possibility. I read elsewhere (here?) that 1,000 part-time, seasonal national park job offers had been rescinded, so this seems something in the way of re-emphasizing the earlier news article. Have a great week and safe travels!
If true, will that open opportunity for work camper volunteers?
Good point, Jim! Would be a way to address the perceived shortfall. Safe travels!
How about everyone just sits back, takes a breath, and wait for a few weeks until all the rhetoric settles down..
and then maybe we can quit responding with alarm to all the overhyped newspaper headlines and T.V. news reports
“according to a report by The Los Angeles Times”….. which, as we all know is the gold standard for rational editorialization and unbiased news, who also stated without equivocation that inflation was transitory 2, 3 and 4 years ago … so ya, I agree with Bill… everyone take a beat. Let’s have a serious conversation about it in let’s say 6 months instead of trying to scare the bajeezers out of the folks.
Took the words right out of mouth!! Can we put anything in RV Travel News with a positive spin these days?
I don’t want to wait 6 months to see what happens. That means we will have to wait until mid summer at the earliest to find out if the public lands we enjoy are open, staffed and maintained. We would miss our annual month long Spring camping trip that typically includes mostly staying in national parks and forests, and miss most of our summer trips too. Are you proposing we limit our RVing for the next 6 months? Life is too short and there are too many beautiful parks in our country we have not been able to visit yet to sit and wait for the chaos to settle down. And there is no reason to believe it will improve in 6 months.
I’m pretty sure the parks are, and will be open so go enjoy your spring trip and don’t change your summer plans is the point. Maybe a few less rangers or park employees but still open. The sky is not falling.
I appreciate the work performed by seasonal employees. They do most of the trail, campground and restroom maintenance. These positions are being cancelled by people who have never camped a day in their lives.
Everyone appreciates the work performed by seasonal employees. The problem is the deep rot in all of the administrative state. A rot so deep, as we have seen this week so very clearly that an amputation is needed. We can put on a new high functioning limb as soon as we have the infection controlled. No chance for incremental changes, we have tried that.
10,000 USAID jobs were cut to under 300 this week and not one human receiving actual aid will die. 100% of the health and life saving aid, like PETFAR, is still intact.
I’m not talking about the politics. I’m concerned with having the facilities at our country’s parks and campgrounds maintained this year. You seem willing to sacrifice that, but then maybe you don’t use them.
Agreed, I am simply suggesting it is a short term sacrafice/inconvenience to save the entire country/free world.
I don’t use Medicaid but want it saved.
I don’t use SBA but want it saved.
I don’t use Title IX but am happy it has NOW been saved.
I would guess we are agreement on 90%. I am for, and we can double spending on parks in a year or 2 but this year, everything is on the chopping block until ROI tested. Everything needs an audit and review. It is the only way.
Happy trails. 🚍✌️
This evening, we just conversed with our son who has gone up through the ranks, starting out as an interpretive ranger with the National Park Service. For each promotion with a paygrade increase, assuming it was not a lateral move, to obtain that increase one has to have time-in-grade to be eligible for promotion. To get a promotion requires searching country-wide postings, applying, then if the applicants background sounds like a good fit, interviews come next. Coming out on top is a challenge. When accepted, a move will be required to be near the park or monument. Our son is presently unable to start hiring summer rangers. Another ranger just had their promotion cancelled.
Congratulations on a son so obviously invested to his career and his commitment. Hopefully, this will all settle out in a few months and the adverse collateral impacts, including to your son and his colleagues, will resume as normal, in due course. 70 years of bad mgmt top to bottom, with no regard for good stewardship of the taxpayers hard earned money has forced this ‘touch of austerity’ in all of Gov’t. The only way forward involves short term discomfort but your son and his coworkers will remain in my thoughts. Patience will be needed as we return to common sence governance of our great nation.
Happy trails. 😎✌️
I find the “peace sign” from you hilarious
✌️😂😅