For students hoping to enter the forestry field, it has been nothing but good news lately. With the increases in budgets and job opportunities, students have more reason to be hopeful for a forestry career now than ever before. But the good news keeps on coming. In March a new bill was introduced that seeks to open up the playing field when it comes to the hiring process for permanent jobs.

 

Permanent jobs within the Federal Government are few and far in between and highly competitive to say the least. Many government employees, especially in the forestry field, are seasonal workers. They may spend their summer in Yellowstone and their winter in Death Valley. They are legally limited to 1039 hours in each place a year, before they are terminated from their jobs and forced to move on. Years are spent moving back and forth without benefits and not earning status for their civil service.

 

The reason behind this is the big Catch 22 within the United States government. Generally permanent jobs are open only to Merit Status Candidates. So without that status you aren’t even allowed to apply for a job, much less hope to get one. But here is the tricky part; the only way to earn merit status is to work as a permanent employee for a number of months. You need status to even apply for only type of job that would earn you status. There are always exceptions of course, but this is how the majority of the permanent jobs work.

 

Democrat Virginia Congressman Gerry Connolly recently presented The Land Management Workforce Flexibility Act H.R. 1531 to fix this problem. What this new law would do is to allow seasonal employees to achieve that Merit Status after a certain number of seasons to allow them to compete for permanent jobs against those already have them and have already earned status. It applies only to the seasonal employees of the following forestry and land management agencies: The Forest Service, The Bureau of Land Management, The National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Bureau of Reclamation.

 

One of the cosponsors, Republican Alaska Congressman Ron Young describes the bill as “Common-sense legislation that removes needless bureaucratic barriers currently preventing some of our experienced temporary employees from competing for permanent positions. This legislation would significantly reduce the costs associated with a high attrition rate in our nation’s temporary seasonal workforce, and enhance the pool of highly qualified applicants that compete for permanent positions. It’s truly a win win for our federal land management agencies.”

 

H.R. 1531 was presented to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March. It passed unanimously. Now it will move on to the House of Representatives, and if it passes there it will move on to Senate and eventually to the President to become law. If this bipartisan bill is something that you would like to see become law, the best way to voice that would be to write your local congressperson in support of it. You can find that representative by zip code here.