State Department scrambles to rebuild foreign aid workforce

The State Department is rebuilding its workforce — and across the world, positions are opening up to fill the gaps created by the obliteration of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“Oh look the job I was RIFed from,” one former USAID employee wrote on a LinkedIn post advertising those new positions, which went live in early December.

It’s all part of a messy, ongoing scramble to reassemble the staff needed to oversee billions in foreign aid — and the first visible sign of a system trying to piece itself back together. For months, the aid sector has been asking how the State Department will continue to deliver assistance without the thousands of staff who worked at USAID. Even with the U.S. aid machinery running at a fraction of its previous capacity, money is still flowing faster than many teams can manage.

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