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Layoffs and departures after pressure from the Trump administration have left sites struggling, with the remaining employees each doing the work of two or three people.
Eileen Sullivan covers changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration. She reported from Washington.
July 3, 2025Updated 7:26 p.m. ET
Vacancies at the National Park Service have shot up since President Trump returned to the Oval Office and slashed the federal work force, leaving popular destinations across the country short-staffed during what is expected to be one of the service’s busiest seasons.
The park service, which manages 433 sites and 85 million acres, has lost nearly a quarter of its permanent staff since the beginning of the Trump administration, according to a new report from the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit organization that focuses on protecting the park system.
The agency is also far behind on hiring temporary employees to support the busy summer season, already well underway.
In one of his earliest actions, Mr. Trump cut 1,000 employees from the National Park Service. Thousands of others have left voluntarily under pressure to resign or retire. The cuts to the work force are part of a governmentwide effort to shrink the number of federal employees and eliminate programs, and in some cases, entire agencies.
“National parks cannot properly function at the staffing levels this administration has reduced them to,” Theresa Pierno, the head of the National Parks Conservation Association, said in a statement on Thursday. “And it’s only getting worse.”
The parks agency did not respond to a request for comment.
But the cuts keep coming. The administration requested about one-third less for its 2026 budget compared with what it received in 2025.
