Hiring/Retention

VA exempts 300,000 health care positions from governmentwide hiring freeze

The VA memo exempts roughly three-quarters of the Veterans Health Administration's roughly 400,000-employee workforce.

January 23, 2025 3:21 pm

4 min read

The Department of Veterans Affairs is exempting more than 300,000 health care positions from a governmentwide hiring freeze.

VA doctors, nurses, pharmacists and medical officers are among the dozens of occupations excluded from the hiring freeze.

Acting VA Secretary Todd Hunter, in a memo to department leaders, stated Veterans Health Administration positions “critical to delivering care to veterans” are exempt from the freeze, under the category of public safety.

Military Times first reported on the memo before its public release on Thursday. The VA memo exempts roughly three-quarters of VHA’s approximately 400,000-employee workforce.

Multiple individuals, however, have told Federal News Network they have had final job offers rescinded for VA health care positions since Trump ordered the hiring freeze, and are not sure if the department will reverse course after issuing the memo.

Another memo sent by the leadership of one VA medical center, obtained by Federal News Network, said human resources will “immediately take actions to contact hires in these occupations who had job offers rescinded.”

“HR will also work to re-initiate postings and move forward on any other hiring actions for occupations which are now exempt,” the memo states.

One job applicant said her final job offer for a nurse position was rescinded by the VA on Wednesday, but was reinstated on Thursday.

“[They] told me that they would be able to hire me and keep my start date,” the individual said. “It’s been an emotional couple of days, but it looks like everything is working out. But the HR reps are definitely working overtime.”

President Donald Trump, in an executive order signed Monday, included several exemptions, including one for veterans’ benefits.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, VA will always do what is necessary to provide America’s veterans with the benefits and services they have earned,” VA Director of Media Affairs Morgan Ackley said in a statement Thursday. “The targeted hiring-freeze exemptions announced today underscore that fact.”

The VA made its health care workforce exempt from the first Trump administration’s hiring freeze in 2017.

But former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Trump’s nominee to run the VA, didn’t make an explicit assurance to lawmakers at his confirmation hearing that the department would grant those same carveouts this time around.

“President Trump, in this executive order, is to get an assessment on where we are with our employees. It is not to take away from anything that is currently there,” Collins said Tuesday. “We may not, at this point, bring in a new person tomorrow, unless needed, but this is where we’re at.”

Members of the Senate VA Committee raised concerns about the hiring freeze at Tuesday’s hiring and whether the Trump administration would pursue cuts to the VA’s workforce.

The committee advanced Collins’ nomination in an 18-1 vote on Thursday. Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said he would support Collins’ nomination, but added he has “really intense concerns” about the hiring freeze.

“Whatever the effects on other departments or agencies, all of you know how dire the need is for the doctors, the nurses, the attendants — everyone involved in the VA health care system,” Blumenthal said. “There’s openings now, they need to be filled — particularly for mental health care. Delaying these medical appointments and benefits is in some cases denial of those benefits because health is such an urgent need for many of our veterans, particularly our older veterans.”

The VA memo states all jobs not exempt from the hiring freeze must be pulled from USAJobs.gov and other websites no later than Jan. 21. at 5 p.m.

As of Thursday afternoon, the VA advertised 139 vacant positions on USAJobs.gov. The VA, however, reported more than 40,000 vacancies at the end of 2024.

House VA Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano (D-Calif.) joined House Democrats in asking the department’s leadership for more details about the hiring freeze’s impact on its workforce, and whether it would ask the Office of Personnel Management for more exemptions.

“No one at the White House even stopped to consider that freezing hiring for veterans’ health care providers or veterans claims processers might be a bad idea,” Takano said in a statement Thursday.

A spokeswoman for the House VA Committee said Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) “fully supports the Trump administration’s exemptions for the VA hiring freeze to ensure that health care services are not impacted for veterans.”