After lengthy freeze, U.S. Forest Service makes seasonal hiring push

National forests across the country launched a hiring blitz last month for seasonal workers, a move that follows a freeze on hiring similar positions that lasted more than a year.

The U.S. Forest Service is hiring up to 2,000 non-fire temporary seasonal employees across the country to help manage recreation, timber production and more.

Individual forests advertised the positions last month. The job application window closed this week.

The number of employees headed to each forest varies. In Washington, the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest is hiring a total of 51 positions. The Colville National Forest is hiring 18.

The Umatilla National Forest, which includes land in northeast Oregon and southeast Washington, will hire 24 seasonal employees. The Idaho Panhandle National Forests plan to hire a total of 21.

It’s the first time the agency has sought temporary seasonal employees since the Biden administration ordered a hiring freeze for those positions in the fall of 2024.

The Forest Service’s workforce took even more hits last year when the Trump administration fired probationary employees, offered incentives for early retirement and ordered a government-wide hiring freeze for vacant positions.

With the departure of thousands of employees, the agency’s work suffered. An internal report from the Forest Service’s trail program said that some ranger districts lost all of their trail maintenance staff and that basic trail maintenance wasn’t getting done.

The December report, which was first obtained by the Washington Post, painted a stark picture of morale among the Forest Service staffers who remained and raised concerns that public access and visitor satisfaction would continue to decline without a shift.

Among the report’s suggestions was to “expedite temporary seasonal hiring.”

Most of the jobs the agency began hiring last month carry the title of “forestry technician” – a relatively loose term that could conceivably be applied to a wide array of tasks, from clearing trails to marking trees for a timber sale.

On the Okanogan-Wenatchee forest, which is made up of 3.8 million acres on the east slopes of the Cascades and includes the Enchantments, most of the technicians will be assigned to managing recreation.

Victoria Wilkins, an Okanogan-Wenatchee spokesperson, said in an email that the forest plans to assign three temporary seasonals to its timber program. The rest will be assigned to recreation.

“Recreation positions will assist with all aspects of recreation management, including operating and maintaining campgrounds and day-use sites and interacting with and educating forest visitors,” Wilkins said. “Timber positions will assist with timber sale preparation, including flagging unit boundaries, GPS mapping and data collection, and learning timber cruising basics.”

Wilkins did not answer a question about how the staffing level compares to temporary seasonal hiring in the years before the hiring freeze.

A Colville National Forest official previously told The Spokesman-Review that the forest had 45 temporary seasonals in 2024. Of those, 21 were converted to permanent seasonal positions ahead of the hiring freeze, effectively ensuring they’d remain despite the prohibition on temporary seasonal hiring.

The 18 temporary seasonals the Colville National Forest plans to hire for this summer are spread across all four of its ranger districts, according to spokesperson Megan Bush. She said six positions are slotted for the Republic Ranger District – two recreation positions, two range management positions, one administrative position and one timber-focused position. At the Three Rivers Ranger District in Kettle Falls, officials are looking to hire six recreation-focused positions.

The Tonasket Ranger District is expected to get four temporary seasonals, split evenly between recreation and timber. Two positions were being hired for the Newport-Sullivan Lake Ranger District with a focus on developed recreation, trails and the forest’s Salmo-Priest Wilderness Area.

Patrick Lair, a spokesperson for the Idaho Panhandle forests, said in an email that the 21 technicians that the Coeur d’Alene headquartered forest will hire will “assist with recreation and nursery operation across all five ranger districts and at the Coeur d’Alene Nursery.”

Lair did not provide any further details on where the employees would be assigned, nor any details on how the number of hires compared to forest staffing levels in the years before the seasonal hiring freeze.

Christopher Dennis, a spokesperson for the Umatilla National Forest, said the 24 seasonal employees being hired on his forest are spread across its recreation, timber and range programs, and that they’ll “help improve trails, campgrounds and support our active management programs.”

He added that the forest averages about 24 non-fire seasonal positions each year.

Organizations that work closely with the Forest Service are happy to see the agency hiring some temporary seasonal employees, but they don’t see it as a complete solution to the agency’s maintenance woes.

Kindra Ramos, chief programs officer for the Washington Trails Association, said in a statement that the storms that came through Washington in December surely left a lot of damage that will need to be cleaned up.

“We’re hopeful that with seasonal positions being hired in a number of national forests in Washington state that we’ll see more Forest Service staff working out in the field – something that’s very much needed and that WTA has been advocating for over the past year,” Ramos said.

She added that WTA is hiring its own seasonal staff and has already gotten a strong response to its backcountry volunteer work trips, but that the work will go beyond this season.

“Unfortunately, there is more work than all of us can accomplish in the year ahead and sustained funding and staffing is needed for our public lands long-term,” Ramos said.