Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Thursday he is perplexed that more young people are not interested in federal jobs, even though his department has laid off more than 4,000 employees since 2024.
“I find it fascinating that more young people don’t want to apply,” he said. “We’re begging people to come.”
Duffy presented on federal employment at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, as a guest speaker for Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor’s college recruiting tour as part of his initiative to attract more early-career workers to public service.
The effort marks a shift for the Trump administration, which has spent much of the past two years cutting the federal workforce. It is also the government’s latest attempt to address the historic under-representation of young people in the civil service.
“I want to end the (early career) analyst programs at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs because I want to send everyone to do two years in government,” Kupor said Thursday. “I think this is a real opportunity for you to think about not only serving your country, but also how you will develop your career.”
“My year in government, I learned more than I ever learned in 15 years”
The boot-clad OPM director told about 75 TCU students and other attendees that people under 30 make up 7 percent of the roughly 2 million people in public service, although they make up 23 percent of the total U.S. workforce — a statistic he cites frequently.
However, the percentage of federal workers under the age of 30 declined, from 8.9% to 7.9%, during the first year of Trump’s second term, as agencies carried out mass layoffs of newly hired employees who had not completed their one-year probationary periods, affecting many early-career workers.
OPM has recently sought to reverse this decline, including through recruitment initiatives, a social media campaign and university visits.
Kupor occasionally brings conservative influencers on the college tour. At the University of Florida, he had a fireside chat with right-wing commentator Benny Johnson. In September, he visited the University of Austin, an unaccredited school of about 150 students founded by conservative figures that began its first academic year in 2024.
On Friday, however, Kupor will speak at Southern Methodist University in Texas with Mark Cuban, a billionaire investor known for his support of Democratic candidates.
Kupor and Duffy’s presentation was moderated by Michael Boes, a TCU alumnus who served as a senior advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services during Trump’s second term and is now responsible for “Make America Healthy Again” at Steak ‘n Shake.
“I (spent) 15 years (in) the private sector, and without a doubt, my year in government, I learned more than I ever learned in 15 years,” Boes said at Thursday’s event.
Duffy also remarked that he “would rather have a lot of TCU grads than a lot of Berkeley grads,” referring to the California university known for its left-wing activism.
“I’d rather have a lot of TCU grads than a lot of Berkeley grads.”
Titus Fagan, a TCU accounting senior and student body president, said in an interview with Government Executive that listening to Duffy and Kupor made him more interested in pursuing public service.
“When I came here to attend this event, a lot of our students were saying the same thing (as me). I just didn’t know everything the government had to offer in terms of position,” he said. “Today’s conversations really helped open some of these doors or pathways that we didn’t know existed. »
He cautioned, however, that agencies are competing with companies that have already made inroads with students.
“They are recruited by another company before opportunities within the federal government are presented,” he said. “Accounting and finance internships really start now, around your second year. »
Kupor and Duffy also discussed artificial intelligence on Thursday, which polls show young adults are increasingly concerned about, particularly regarding job loss. The OPM director urged students to develop “soft skills,” including team building, leadership and communication skills.
“You have to master your technical skills, but don’t neglect those other areas because I think that’s a lot of what’s going to differentiate people and performance from an employer perspective over time,” he said.
Gn headline
