Minnesota leaders are offering support to federal employees who have been laid off as the Department of Government Efficiency cuts positions across departments.

“We are aggressively looking if we can hire people into Minnesota,” said Governor Tim Walz. “If we can hire them into state government, if we can hire them into the private sector, we’re encouraging people to look at Minnesota as a landing spot.”

There are about 18,000 federal workers in Minnesota, according to state officials. It’s unclear how many have lost jobs.

Gov. Walz announced on Thursday the state has launched a website to help former federal employees find work. It connects job seekers with open positions in state government, CareerForce workshops and locations, and how to apply for unemployment benefits.

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It also connects veterans with resources tailored for them. State statute allows veterans to receive preference among pools of applicants.

“These are professionals that are being let go,” said Gov. Walz. “It’s a significant impact.”

Minnesota has 168,000 job openings, according to the Department of Labor. The number of openings has been trending down since 2021. For businesses looking to hire, there is less than one person unemployed for every job opening available.

“It’s a difficult time,” said Paul DeBettignies, the founder of Launch Hiring. “If we were to put another 10,000 to 15,000 folks looking for jobs, whether it’s the federal government or what’s going on with industry in Minnesota itself, people’s job search may be taking longer than they may be hoping. They may be taking roles that they otherwise might not want.”

He encourages all Minnesotans to update their LinkedIn profiles, add metrics that demonstrate job accomplishments to their resume, and be open to any kind of employment.

“Whatever they can do to have revenue coming in, income, is my advice,” said DeBettignies.

He’s been a talent advisor and talent strategist for more than 20 years. He expects the full impacts of the federal layoffs to become clearer in the next six weeks or so.

“These folks that have been working for the federal government, some for only a year or two but others for 15, 20, 30 years, how are they going to make a shift now into the local economy?” said DeBettignies. “Sometimes these are niche roles and so both the job seeker and the employer, we’re going to have to learn a bit of a new language.”

Mack Guthrie feels fortunate to be able to continue providing public health education in Minneapolis Public Schools despite being terminated from his role with the CDC in mid-February.

“It has been chaotic, to put it lightly,” he said.

Guthrie was 15 months into a two-year Public Health Associate Program when he was laid off.

“This was my dream job; I moved here specifically for this job,” said Guthrie. “About 50% of my work was related to direct health education, going into high school classrooms and teaching sex ed classes, healthy relationships, and STI prevention. About 50% was on the administrative side.”

Guthrie received the email on Feb. 15, which was a Saturday, alerting him that the previous Friday was his last day. There are more than 100 associates in the program nationwide and many were cut, according to Guthrie.

“They’re just scrambling,” he said. “They’re applying for jobs. They’re trying to figure out, ‘Can I afford to keep living where I’m living?’, ‘Do I need to break my lease?’”

Earlier this week, about 180 laid-off CDC employees received emails telling them they could return to their jobs. Guthrie was one of them.

“You’re getting this email saying we expect you back at work tomorrow and that’s just not possible,” said Guthrie. “It was almost equally hard to get that email I’ve been reinstated as it was to have been terminated in the first place.”

He explained the City of Minneapolis hired him to continue his public health work in Minneapolis Public Schools after he was laid off. As a result, he had to submit a resignation to the CDC after learning his position had been reinstated.

“The folks at the City of Minneapolis worked really hard to bring me on as a temporary employee,” said Guthrie. “I could not be more excited not only to have this stability after everything going on at CDC but really in broad strokes to get to keep doing my work but explore new elements of it.”