On Thursday, February 27, Tom Di Liberto lost his job as a public affairs specialist in the office of communications at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. He was just two weeks away from the end of his two-year probationary period as a federal employee — despite having worked as a contractor at the agency for over a decade — when he and hundreds of his NOAA colleagues were fired as part of a downsizing led by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Like many of the thousands of federal workers who have found themselves unemployed or unsure of their employment status since the start of Donald Trump’s second administration, the climate scientist turned communications expert took to LinkedIn to share his feelings about being fired that day, the start the process of figuring out what happens next, and navigating the climate job market.

“Being a federal employee at NOAA was a dream come true. Literally. I’ve wanted to work at NOAA since I was in elementary school,” he wrote. “To NOAA and all federal colleagues, stay strong and keep protecting this country and world.” He added that he would be looking for new employment opportunities and would appreciate any connections.

Despite reaching a wide audience (“If there’s a viral equivalent on LinkedIn — I had over 100,000 impressions or something like that,” Di Liberto later told me) and sending out applications regularly, he’s still looking. So are many of the fellow fired federal workers whose own search for opportunities he’s helped amplify to his network.

According to data gathered by The New York Times, the Trump administration has so far cut somewhere close to 60,000 federal jobs (some of which have been temporarily reinstated following court orders) — not counting the more than 70,000 employees who have taken resignation offers — and more than double that number are still planned.

But now this influx of former federal talent is hitting up against pressures affecting the private and nonprofit sectors, leaving those newly out of a job questioning whether there are enough jobs for everyone, and how stable they may ultimately be when navigating the climate job market.

Read the full article about navigating the climate job market by Claire Elise Thompson at Grist.