By Lucy Richardson
Background
On Feb. 14, 2025, a federally mandated hiring freeze ignited uncertainty for National Parks Service (NPS) staff and other departments. While a precise figure of affected employees is uncertain, the AP reported roughly 1,000 newly hired NPS employees received terminations.
Firings and layoffs in related departments like the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management will affect park operations, as they enter a busy summer tourist season. In total, an estimated 5,000 public land staff members have lost their jobs.
Many federal employees across departments were sent a “deferred resignation” offer which extended financial incentives to employees who decided to step down by Feb. 6. According to the AP, 75,000 federal employees accepted this offer by Feb. 12. In addition to these resignations, many probationary employees — workers with less than a year of tenure in their positions and no civil service protection — received notifications of layoffs. This measure could affect hundreds of thousands of employees.
Many NPS workers, due to the seasonal nature of park employment, fall under this probationary category. These workers typically join NPS staff for the busy seasons to clean the grounds, maintain trails, educate visitors, provide safety and medical aid and perform other essential functions.
Deep Dive
The federal NPS governs 433 sites, including America’s 63 recognized national parks. Colorado is home to 18 NPS sites, including four national parks: Rocky Mountain, Mesa Verde, Great Sand Dunes and Black Canyon of Gunnison National Parks. In 2023, the NPS reported roughly 11,100 total employees throughout the state of Colorado’s sites.
The uncertainty of the Parks Service’s future is compounded by a lack of clarity on specific headcounts for terminated employees.
The Association of National Park Rangers (ANPR), a non-profit agency of park employees and advocates, has turned to social media and other networks to create a crowdsourced spreadsheet of firing trends. As of Feb. 28, their efforts revealed 759 firings at NPS sites in the state.
With the summer tourist season on the horizon, many Coloradans are left to wonder how these firings will affect park operations.
A 2023 report by the NPS revealed that the 7.3 million visitors to Colorado’s parks contributed roughly $1.3 billion in economic output to the state for the reported year. This output has continuously increased year-over-year — barring a slight downturn in 2020 due to pandemic travel restrictions and park closures.
Some parks are already reacting to the staffing shortages with closures. Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, located in Teller County just 35 miles northwest of Colorado Springs, announced that its visitor center will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays for the foreseeable future; a reduction from the previous seven-day-a-week operational schedule.
If Colorado’s other parks follow suit, these closures could have a marked impact on the state’s economic output. At this point, though, the economic and environmental impact of these layoffs is purely speculative. Additionally, federal mandates regarding employment opportunities are changing rapidly.
Updates
On Feb. 20, the Trump administration announced the restoration of dozens of jobs for NPS employees. The park service also announced that it will hire up to 7,700 seasonal workers for the upcoming season, an increase from the previously estimated 5,000 openings. This is a promising change of tides, but human service workers in the NPS report a sense of whiplash from the federal mandates, noting that the rescinding of previous contracts has restarted the parks’ hiring efforts and will delay the seasonal staffing timeline.
To further complicate this matter, Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court ruled the mass firings of probationary employees illegal, ordering departments to reinstate all 16,000 employees of that classification who were terminated due to the Feb. 14 directive. This news was delivered at the end of the American Federation of Government Employees v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (AFGE v. OPM) hearing on March 13.
On Monday, March 24, the Trump administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to halt this rehiring process, claiming the ruling violates the separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches.
This news is currently developing and, at the time of writing, there have been no major actions taken as a result of this ruling or the administration’s appeal.
