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With Hiring Freeze Looming, OPM Launches Federal Cybersecurity Job Portal

The website pulls together listings from across the federal government.

It might become useless for a lot of agencies soon, but the U.S. Office of Personnel Management has launched a Web portal for federal cybersecurity jobs.

OPM launched the website, cybercareers.gov, on Jan. 10 as part of its Federal Cybersecurity Workforce Strategy. The portal includes job listings and tools for human resources managers, and will incorporate workforce training in the future.

The purpose, according to OPM Acting Director Beth Cobert, is to build up the cybersecurity talent in federal government. Federal government — and OPM in particular — is facing increasing challenges in that area. Aside from hacks into political party systems during the presidential campaign last year, hackers breached OPM in 2015 and stole personal information for more than 20 million people.

OPM will continue shaping the Web portal over time, Cobert said.

“We collaborated with agency cyberpartners to create content for this website and will continue to update the site through user interactions and feedback provided from those experiences,” she said in the statement.

Of course, President-elect Donald Trump has proposed a hiring freeze beginning his first day in office for all federal agencies except “military, safety and public health.” So come Jan. 20, it’s possible that the majority of agencies won’t have any jobs to put on the portal — though some, such as the Department of Defense, would appear to be able to continue using it.

Democrats in Congress plan to fight Trump on the hiring freeze, according to Federal News Radio.

Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.