Lienne Hill engages her 5th grade students in an interactive lesson at Kessler Elementary School at Fort Stewart, Ga., in September 2024. (Michael O’Day/Department of Defense Education Activity )
Teaching positions at Department of Defense Education Activity schools and on-post day care workers are among more than a dozen classes of jobs that the Pentagon has exempted from a department-wide hiring freeze, according to a department memorandum.
Jules Hurst, the acting defense undersecretary for personnel readiness, carved out about 18 classes of exemptions to the civilian hiring freeze ordered Feb. 28 by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the March 18 memo. Most of the positions focused on key support for military functions and for quality-of-life issues for service members.
The child-related exemptions included teachers and facility staff at DOD schools, instructors or support staff at child care centers on military installations and child and youth services staff positions, which include teen centers and counseling services.
Those exemptions come as the Pentagon has worked in recent years to bolster its civilian child care-focused workforce, especially in its popular on-post day care facilities that serve as an alternative to expensive off-post day care services.
Hegseth ordered the civilian jobs freeze last month after President Donald Trump had issued a broad civilian hiring freeze over most of the federal government in January as part of his administration’s efforts to slash the size of the government.
The Pentagon last week said some 21,000 civilian employees had accepted deferred resignations offered as part of the Trump administration’s federal workforce purge. A senior official said the department intends to eliminate some 50,000 to 60,000 of its roughly 900,000 civilian jobs as part of its budget reduction efforts spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
But Hurst’s memo also exempted civilian workers at military depots, shipyards, arsenals, and maintenance locations and civilian positions throughout Military Entrance Processing Command.
Other positions exempted from the hiring freeze by Hurst included civilian mariners, positions at military medical facilities that treat patients or are essential to hospital operations, and jobs critical to “fire, life and safety” response on military installations.
Positions that fall under the Pentagon’s Nonappropriated Fund umbrella — those whose salaries are not directly paid by taxpayers — were also exempted. Those positions include civilian jobs at military exchanges and various Morale, Welfare and Recreation programs for service members and their families.
Hurst also exempted civilian positions that directly support the U.S. president, those “essential to immigration enforcement, national security, public safety, recruiting and readiness,” positions required to be filled by dual status military technicians — reservists whose civilian position requires they also work part time as service members — and positions “required to be filled as directed by a court, arbitrator or administrative tribunal” or those required to be “filled by law.”
Hurst also made exemptions for civilian employees to fill jobs consistent with “career ladder promotions.”
Other civilian jobs could be exempted under the Pentagon policy, but they must be submitted to DOD’s Civilian Personnel Policy office each week by the secretaries of the military departments or the leaders of DOD components, Hurst wrote.
“Proposed exemptions should include justifications and should prioritize civilian positions directly linked to building [combat] readiness and providing essential services,” he wrote.
