Trump’s cuts to the civil service undermine new tech internship push, good government group argues

The Office of Personnel Management in December launched a new internship program as part of a broader effort to bring tech talent into the government, but a nonpartisan nonprofit seeking to strengthen agency opportunities for college students is concerned that recent efforts to shrink the federal workforce will hinder the program’s success. 

“It will not be as easy as they think it will be to recruit people back,” warned Michelle Amante, senior vice president of government programs at the Partnership for Public Service. 

Under the new “semester of service” student volunteer service program, the Trump administration is aiming to initially select 200 students for tech-focused internships. The program will be administered through OPM, and Amante argued that centralizing internship processes in the government’s human resources agency will ease onboarding and recruitment. 

Still, she’s worried that “adding this to [OPM’s] plate will be an impossible task” due ...