3. Central Personnel Agencies · Notable
Freeze all top career-position hiring to stop burrowing-in
Printed page 79 3. Central Personnel Agencies
“What is needed at the beginning is a freeze on all top career-position hiring to prevent "burrowing-in" by outgoing political appointees.”
What has happened
- Done
Made permanent. The January memorandum was written to expire once OMB delivered its workforce plan; Executive Order 14356 reimposed the same rule with no end date — no vacant federal civilian position may be filled and no new position created except as the order allows — again exempting Senate-confirmed posts, noncareer SES, Schedule C and the new Schedule G, and adding a Strategic Hiring Committee in every agency to approve each hire and Annual Staffing Plans filed with OPM and OMB.
- Done
Done on day one, and wider than asked. The Hiring Freeze memorandum barred filling any federal civilian position vacant at noon on Inauguration Day and barred creating new ones, across the whole executive branch and regardless of funding source — which necessarily covers the top career positions the Quote is worried about. Its exceptions are the mirror image of the ask: presidential and Senate-confirmed appointments, noncareer Senior Executive Service posts and Schedule A and C positions were all left free. Burrowing-in by outgoing appointees was closed off at the moment the Mandate says it matters.
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
Researched 2026-08-27.
The Hiring Freeze memorandum of 2025-01-20 (read on govinfo.gov) is broader than the ask and lands squarely on it. “No Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created” — and the carve-outs are precisely the political side: the memorandum “does not limit the nomination and appointment of officials to positions requiring Presidential appointment or Senate confirmation, the appointment of officials to non-career positions in the Senior Executive Service or to Schedule A or C positions in the Excepted Service.” That is a freeze on career hiring that leaves political hiring free — the burrowing-in mechanism, closed at the top of the transition.
The memorandum was written to expire on issuance of the OMB workforce plan (except at the IRS). It did not lapse into nothing: EO 14356 (2025-10-15) restored the same prohibition indefinitely, with the same political carve-outs plus Schedule G and the Executive Office of the President, and added Strategic Hiring Committees and Annual Staffing Plans.
- Action
- restrict
- Object
- top career-position hiring
- ID
- 120