How layoffs could impact Yellowstone ahead of tourism season

BOISE (KIVI) – The National Parks Conservation Association is a nonprofit that advocates for national parks and they have concerns moving forward after 1,000 people were laid off.

Michelle Uberuaga is the senior program manager for the NPCA’s greater Yellowstone area. We caught up with her on a zoom interview from her home in Livingston, Montana.

“There is just so much uncertainty at this point. Are they going to be able to operate?” said Uberuaga. “They are already under staffed. We have seen a 20% decline in park service staffing since 2010.”

Uberuaga told us Yellowstone National Park has lost seven probationary employees while Grand Teton National Park has 15 workers laid off.

This comes after a hiring freeze in January and although that was rescinded by the Department of the Interior on Friday, Uberuaga told us the national parks start the process of hiring seasonal in September.

She isn’t sure whether Yellowstone will hire the 300 to 350 workers they need by peak tourism season and it’s the same scenario for Grand Teton. It usually has around 500 seasonal workers. Uberuaga also told us they don’t know how many workers took the buyout proposed by DOGE and the Trump administration.

“When you add all of this up together, it is pretty devastating,” said Uberuaga. “I am deeply concerned about the impacts. We really don’t know how many people we are going to have.”

Yellowstone had 4.5 million visitors in 2023 and they spent $663 million dollars in gateway communities, including Island Park. We saw how a lack of tourism affected these communities during the pandemic and the flood of 2022.

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“There are far-reaching consequences to our small communities when they are laying off this many people,” said Uberuaga. “The national parks are one-fifteenth of one percent of the national budget and for every dollar spent in the park, it brings $15 back into our communities. This is not an efficient way to cut the budget. It does the opposite.”

The largest question looms — how will these layoffs impact visitors this spring and summer in Yellowstone and Grand Teton? Right now, we don’t know how this will go, but Uberuaga has concerns moving forward.

“I can say with a lot of confidence there are going to be longer lines, potentially campground closures, maybe limited hours at the visitors center and more traffic jams,” said Uberuaga. “I think worst case scenario is public safety could be at risk.”

Uberuaga had lunch with a man who was laid off from Yellowstone and lost his health insurance. She told us the staffer working in IT got an email saying he was being let go because of poor work performance. That is similar to the other stories we have been hearing in the national parks and the forest service layoffs.

“We are right at that breaking point,” said Uberuaga. “Morale is very low and people are scared they might be next. It is a pretty dire situation.”

We reached out to the National Park Service, but we have not heard back. More than 3,400 forest service workers were also laid off and there have been rallies all over the country in response to these actions.

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