A molar was broken by Eric Anderson. Not from a fall or an accident, but rather from grinding his teeth while lying awake in his Chicago apartment at night, wondering what would happen next. Anderson, 48, worked in biological science at Indiana Dunes National Park for years, conducting wildfire deployments, prescribed fire management, and vegetation sampling. Then an email came in on February 14. He had vanished. In a single dismissal letter from an administration he had never met, all that accumulated knowledge, the master’s degree, and the urban forestry coursework were erased.
He is among the tens of thousands of people ensnared in the massive cost-cutting drive spearheaded by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which has been tearing through federal agencies since the beginning of this year.
| Agency involved | Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk |
| Federal workforce size | ~2.4 million civilian workers; over 80% based outside Washington D.C. |
| Estimated displaced | 134,000+ navigating job transitions (NYT analysis, early 2026) |
| Job search surge | 50% spike in federal worker applications on Indeed (Jan–Feb 2026) |
| Key agencies cut | USAID, National Parks Service, multiple federal departments |
| Support organizations | Civic Match (via Work for America nonprofit), state/local governments |
| Legal status | Some firings in courts; Trump administration appealed to Supreme Court |
| Reference | workforamerica.org — Civic Match Program |
Although an official count of those fired has not been released, estimates from analysts and media reviews indicate that the number is much higher than 134,000 individuals undergoing some sort of job transition. Over 80% of the approximately 2.4 million civilian employees of the federal government are located outside of the Washington region, so this upheaval is not a Beltway story. It’s a national one.
“This is someone coming in and tossing a hand grenade and seeing what will happen.”
— Eric Anderson, an Indiana Dunes biological science technician who was fired
Anderson states it clearly. “If you’re doing vegetation sampling and prescribed fire as your main work, there aren’t many jobs.” Employers in the private sector are starting to accept this uncomfortable reality. There aren’t generalists among the workers swarming the labor market. They are experts, highly skilled individuals whose abilities were developed around missions without clear corporate counterparts. Additionally, most people believe that the labor market they are entering was already competitive prior to the arrival of DOGE.
In a recent interview, career coach and labor market analyst Amanda Goodall, who calls herself a “labor market nerd,” stated bluntly, “To be blunt, it’s a brutally competitive job market right now, and that was before we had more than 200,000 federal workers flood the private sector.
” She wasn’t lying. Between January and February of this year alone, Indeed reported a 50% increase in job applications from federal employees. This sharp increase is probably still growing as DOGE continues to reduce contracts and dismantle programs.
One of those individuals starting over is 51-year-old Cathy Nguyen. She oversaw USAID’s PEPFAR program, a historic global health initiative that has saved about 26 million lives in dozens of nations. She was based in Honolulu. In the private sector, nothing compares to it. No company operates at that scale, with that goal, in that many locations at once. Nguyen lost more than just her job when she was laid off last month. Her professional life’s organizing logic was slipping away.
“It’s requiring me to rethink how I want to spend my professional life,” she said. Meanwhile, the family has stopped saving for retirement, put her children’s college expenses on hold, and cancelled their Disney Plus subscription. These are the silent calculations of unexpected financial uncertainty, not grandiose gestures.
And there’s Mitch Flanigan. Flanigan was placed in the sled dog kennels at Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska when he was forty years old. It was a low-paying job. It’s also an amazing thing to do for a living, and there really isn’t another way to put it. Working as a dog musher in one of the most beautiful wilderness settings in North America is not something that can be replicated in the private sector.
On February 14, he was let go along with Anderson as the Parks Service underwent a wave of mass terminations. Since then, he has appealed to the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board. “I still kind of want to fight for the job that I lost,” he said. “I’m not really making much money, it’s just fun and it’s a unique thing to be a part of.”
The weight of what that sentence reveals is difficult to ignore. These employees didn’t lose their jobs because they put up with the pay. Many of them had a sincere passion for their work. When the government works well, it draws people who want to do important things like track wildlife, fight disease, preserve land, and assist communities in need. The private sector is only now starting to comprehend how DOGE has upended that compact.
The day after returning from maternity leave, Liz Kiriakou learned she had been fired. She was one of the first employees displaced when DOGE essentially dismantled the organization. She was a former USAID contractor who devoted her career to supporting global HIV and AIDS response.
Her circumstances highlight a problem that employers in the private sector are secretly facing: these are mission-driven employees whose institutional knowledge is, in certain situations, irreplaceable, and they are now accessible. Is there anyone outside the government who knows what to do with them?
A few states and organizations are attempting to respond to that query. Last November, the nonprofit organization Work for America launched a program called Civic Match to assist post-election campaign workers in finding employment. Since then, it has changed course to help thousands of former federal employees find similar roles in state and local government. Through the program, Kiriakou has secured a temporary position while seeking longer-term relationships in public service.
The executive director of Work for America, Caitlin Lewis, sees a chance hidden among the mayhem. “While D.C. really has been perceived as kind of the center of gravity for public service, we now have this really incredible opportunity to reimagine what public service looks like and in particular where it happens,” she said. “Cities and states are the answer to that.”
She might be correct. However, the math is still unclear. According to reports, initiatives like Civic Match have helped hundreds of former federal employees find employment. However, the number of job seekers is orders of magnitude greater. At least in the short term, demand might greatly exceed supply.
Additionally, the legal landscape is still changing: Republicans in Congress are attempting to turn some of DOGE’s actions into permanent legislation, courts are still deciding some of the firings, and the Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a federal judge’s order prohibiting mass layoffs.
Eric Anderson is still waiting back in Chicago. I’m still holding out hope that he might be called back. I’m still not sure exactly what he will do if he isn’t. He is aware that there might not be a private-sector equivalent for the specialized field in which he established his career—parks, fire lines, and the meticulous work of ecological management.
He is aware that he is ensnared in a greater force than himself, one that was not subject to his vote. “This is someone coming in and tossing a hand grenade and seeing what will happen,” he said. Thousands of people like him are gradually and painfully picking up the pieces, and a private sector that wasn’t quite ready for them is having to figure out exactly what to do, one resume at a time.