The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to hire more than two dozen temporary workers to help with fire recovery efforts in Southern California.
The agency announced the expanded workforce Thursday, saying the new employees would help in the Eaton and Palisades disaster areas.
The workers will be hired for four months and possibly have their employment extended, depending on need, a FEMA spokesperson said.
Twenty-six positions are available in acquisitions, civil rights, external affairs, disaster field training operations, hazard mitigation, human resources, individual assistance, information technology, human resources and other areas.
An announcement from FEMA said the expedited hiring process is intended to quickly grow its workforce while ensuring that it benefits from the local knowledge of hires from the Los Angeles area.
“Local hire work is part of an expedited process that helps quickly grow the FEMA workforce while also providing economic stimulus and good job opportunities to communities where jobs may have been lost due to a disaster,” FEMA spokesperson La-Tanga Hopes said in a statement.
The hiring pitch promised “many perks” of federal employment, including “excellent benefits, flexible work schedules, opportunities for professional growth, stability, and lateral movement across agencies.”
Nonprofit groups that support federal agencies have said that hiring may be hampered in the face of the massive reductions across many federal agencies ordered recently by the Trump administration. The advocates said federal employment appears less stable than at any time in recent memory.