"US Tech Force" Recruits Temporary Technologists After Mass Layoffs

On December 15, 2025, the Office of Personnel Management launched the "US Tech Force," an initiative to recruit roughly 1,000 technologists into two-year federal placements paying $150,000 to $200,000 annually, with agencies including State, Treasury, Defense, Interior, and the IRS participating. More than 20 private tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Nvidia, and Oracle, are partnering to help recruit and manage participants.

The launch came just months after the same administration shed thousands of federal technology workers through layoffs, buyouts, and early retirements over the course of 2025, prompting criticism that the program amounts to rebuilding a hollowed-out technical workforce in a more precarious, temporary form rather than retaining experienced staff in the first place.

Officials described the approach as "agile government" that allows agencies to scale technical expertise quickly. Critics said the sequence — cutting permanent staff, then recruiting short-term replacements without civil service protections or institutional memory — mirrors patterns seen elsewhere in the administration's approach to the federal workforce.