Federal hiring freeze will be waived for VA jobs with ‘public safety’ missions, agency says

The Washington Post: Hours after the White House said that President Trump’s freeze on federal hiring would include the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency clarified that it plans to continue hiring for jobs with public safety missions.

“The Department of Veterans Affairs intends to exempt anyone it deems necessary for public safety, including frontline caregivers,” Robert Snyder, VA’s acting secretary, said in a statement Wednesday.

That’s likely to mean that the agency, which faces a shortage of thousands of doctors and nurses at the root of a patient wait-times scandal in 2014, will continue to recruit for medical personnel, suicide-prevention counselors and many other health-care jobs.

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