YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK — Thousands of seasonal jobs at national parks across the country are on hold on orders from the Trump Administration.
National park properties in Montana are no exception and that’s leaving both managers and employees in the park with more questions than answers.
Michelle Uberuaga, the Yellowstone Senior Program Manager for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) told MTN News there is currently “chaos and uncertainty” in the Park Service. It’s coming at a bad time.
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“Now is the time when we're hiring seasonal staff in Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier,” said Uberuanga.
The NPCA said Yellowstone alone hires 300 to 350 seasonal workers each summer.
“And without those people, there's going to be significant impacts on Yellowstone and on our communities," Uberuaga added.
Those impacts could be vast. Uberuaga said those seasonal workers do everything from working the entrance gates to helping with public safety services and jobs like snowplowing and routine maintenance.
Losing that help could hit hard. The Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research reports on its website that non-residents spent $5.45 billion in the state in 2023.
The group estimates that 4.4% of Montana’s economy depends on outdoor recreation — that’s the most of any state.
“In Yellowstone Country, that's $1.5 billion. And here in Park County, it's a $500 million tourist economy. And that economy is dependent upon Yellowstone,” said Uberuaga.
She said the process of hiring summer workers started last September and, because of federal rules, takes a long time.
“There's quite a few background checks. There's a really extensive process, even once people are hired and in their job, to get them running, up and running for their jobs," Uberuaga explained.
But she noted that the clock is ticking, “If the freeze is limited and we start back up where we left off, there's still time to hire people for the summer season. If the records are scratched and we're starting back from zero, where we started in September, there's not going to be enough time.”
Full-time workers are also affected. The Fork in the Road memo requires all workers to return to the office full-time. Uberuaga said that can be especially difficult for some Yellowstone employees.
“Many people especially people with young families living in Livingston live in Bozeman. That's a 60-mile drive one way to the office So folks are reporting to the office not every day of the week," Uberuaga said. "But that's gonna have significant impacts on the current staffing folks having to be in Mammoth five days a week. That's just not feasible for some folks.”
She said that means some people are likely to leave Yellowstone jobs. Coupled with a decades-old shortage of workers in National Parks, Uberuaga said the latest actions from Washington, including the Fork in the Road memo, is contributing to low morale in the parks.
“People that work for Yellowstone, they're not doing it for the money. It's a way of life. It's a way of life for all of us that call Yellowstone home. We don’t, we don't call it Yellowstone. It’s, “The Park.” It's our backyard. So it's deeply personal to people that have spent their lives committing their careers to Yellowstone, to potentially have to end it and end it in not a good way, that does not feel good,” she said.
Uberuaga said that since 2010, the number of Park Service employees is down 20% while park visitation is up 16% in the same time period. She said, “We're already understaffed there you cannot run national parks without people.”
Yellowstone staff declined to comment on the hiring freeze. National Park officials in Washington D.C. said in an emailed response that there are some exceptions to the hiring freeze and that the Park Service is assessing its most critical hiring needs for the coming season.
