For anyone nervously watching staffing levels or trying to use their ICTAP status post-RIF to get back in, OMB and OPM just released the guidance for their hiring plan:

https://www.opm.gov/chcoc/latest-memos/guidance-on-executive-order-14356-ensuring-continued-accountability-in-federal-hiring.pdf

​I read through the memo, and it's basically the next hiring freeze, but with a lot of new bureaucracy and some very specific loopholes. Here's the breakdown.

​The New "Hiring Freeze": 4-Out-1-In
​This is the big one. Effective immediately, agencies can only hire one new employee for every four employees that depart.  

​This is temporary: This 4-to-1 ratio is the default rule until the agency submits a new "Annual Staffing Plan" that OMB and OPM approve.  

​It's "Fresh" Departures Only: The memo is very clear that you can't use old attrition data. To calculate the ratio, agencies "must only count departures achieved in the current fiscal year (i.e., Fiscal Year 2026), and may not count reductions achieved in previous fiscal years". So any RIFs or departures or DRPs from FY2025 don't count toward your "out" number.  

​The New Bureaucracy: "Strategic Hiring Committees"
​This is the other major part. All hiring is about to go through a new layer of approval.
​Every agency must establish a "Strategic Hiring Committee".  

​Deadline: Agencies have to create these committees and report their membership to OMB/OPM by November 17, 2025.  

​What they do: This committee must personally approve the creation or filling of each vacancy in the agency. The memo specifically tells them not to just "routinely defer" or rubber-stamp recommendations but to use "independent judgment".  

​Who they are: The committee is supposed to be chaired by a non-career official and have a majority of non-career appointees.  

​The Avenues for Hiring (The Exceptions):
​As you'd expect, there are some major carve-outs. The 4-to-1 freeze and the committee approval do not apply to:
​Positions related to national security  
​Positions related to immigration enforcement  
​Positions related to public safety  
​(It also doesn't apply to military, the Executive Office of the President, or most non-career political appointments like Schedule C) .  

​THe bright spot?: The memo states that hiring can also proceed if it is "specifically approved by the head of an executive department" (i.e., the Secretary). OPM can also just grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis.  

​A Note on What This Actually Means:

​Let's be real, hiring has been unbelievably slow and reduced for the last 6 months anyway.
​Given that, this might mean some actual improvement next year for certain pieces of the federal government where they still want to have hiring, or where so many people leave they have to backfill (like those exempt "public safety" or "national security" jobs). It's definitely not going to be anything like it was before this all slowed down.

The updated "4-out-1-in" quasi-freeze followed by committee ruled hiring