Dive Brief:
- Kansas City, Missouri, is the first city to pilot a Spotlight Cities program that connects recently laid-off federal government employees with local government jobs, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas announced.
- The national initiative is spearheaded by Civic Match, a “rapid-response hiring platform” for laid-off federal government employees run by the nonprofit Work for America. The site hosts more than 10,500 displaced federal workers in search of public sector positions.
- “As the federal government pulls back, cities have a chance to step up,” Lucas said in a press release.
Dive Insight:
The Trump administration has set out to drastically reduce the federal workforce, enacting mass firings across multiple agencies as it works to reshape the federal government and cut spending.
More than 148,000 federal employees have left the workforce so far this year, according to a July analysis by the Partnership for Public Service.
This influx of public servants in the job market may benefit state and local governments, which have an aging workforce and have struggled with recruitment and retention in recent years. A 2025 State and Local Government Workforce Survey found 40% to 70% of municipalities reported difficulty finding enough qualified candidates to fill vacant positions.
Of the roughly 2.3 million-person federal workforce, around 80% are working outside of Washington, D.C., and are located in every state and territory, according to the Partnership for Public Service.
Kansas City is home to more than 30,000 federal employees and is the first of three cities slated to launch Spotlight Cities programs through Civic Match in 2025. Marc Shaw, former deputy assistant secretary of state, was hired through the Civic Match program in February as Kansas City’s interim city auditor.
"At the local level, it’s easy to see the impact of our public service every day and that’s deeply gratifying to me,” Shaw said in a press release.
Work for America will host a workshop with Kansas City employees, support targeted recruitment efforts across high-need city departments and organize a Civic Match happy hour with displaced federal workers. It will also launch an advisory board that Lucas will serve on.
