Amy Uccello was laid off from her job at USAID in late January. Her husband lost his job at a nonprofit working with the agency shortly after.

Melanie Ehrenkranz writes Laid Off, a newsletter she describes as “the coolest place on the internet to talk about being laid off.”

Up until February, Joya Patel was an employee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Becoming a civil servant again would be no easy task right now.

The Forest Service lost more than 10% of its workforce to DOGE firings, and thousands more voluntarily resigned after the Trump administration’s “fork in the road” offer.

Officials in Maryland, New York, New Mexico and Kansas City are among those launching recruitment campaigns targeting federal workers. But matching those workers’ federal salaries and competing with private sector offers will be tough.

Haskell Indian Nations University and Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute each initially lost about 20% of their staff.

In Valley County, Idaho, for example, data show that the Forest Service is the area’s third largest employer — ahead of a school district, the local hospital and a major ski resort.