The National Weather Service (NWS) has received permission to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists, and radar technicians just months after the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts and early retirement incentives severely depleted the agency, CNN reported on Tuesday.
During this Trump administration, the nation’s front-line weather forecasting agency’s staffing levels decreased by more than 550 people to below 4,000 total employees.
Those decreases in personnel had raised concerns over how prepared the country is to deal with weather-related disasters, especially as hurricane season is starting in the Atlantic.
The NWS, helped out by supportive congressmen, has pressed for months for a public safety exemption from the federal hiring freeze. That exemption has now been approved, and the agency has direct hiring authority under the Office of Personnel Management, the official told CNN.
The new hiring totals, which were announced at a NWS staff meeting on Monday, include 126 new positions that were previously approved and will apply to “front-line mission critical” personnel, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) official told CNN.
Current staff members have been working additional hours with added responsibilities since the layoffs and retirements earlier this year in an attempt to keep up the 24/7 posture that is considered necessary for the extreme weather in the U.S.
In addition, the agency has also been trying to deal with less data from fewer, less frequent launches of weather balloons.
One NOAA official expressed the frustration of many, telling CNN that “how much time/money is it going to cost to train a bunch of new people when we had already trained people in place?”
However, it is possible that some of those added to the staff will have been previously trained employees who were fired in the DOGE cuts.
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