State Department predicts strongest year for foreign service intake in a decade

By CNN Newsource

Published April 20, 2022 4:26 PM

By Jennifer Hansler, CNN

The US State Department is expecting its strongest year for foreign service intake in a decade, a department spokesperson told CNN, reversing a trend that began under the Trump administration.

According to the spokesperson, internal numbers show that 327 career foreign service employees have been onboarded this fiscal year, which began in October, with 179 sworn in last week. Their projection is based on onboarding so far and additional classes scheduled.

“I extend my hearty congratulations to our new Foreign Service class of 179 superb employees, putting the State Department on track for its best year for Foreign Service intake since 2012,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “The size of our classes is a testament to the strong appeal of the Foreign Service and the State Department more broadly. I look forward to seeing the work that this class does to advance US diplomacy in the years to come.”

The spokesperson said that 2017 — when the department was led by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — marked the lowest foreign service intake in a decade.

Tillerson, who served as top US diplomat for just over a year, pledged to overhaul the State Department. Cost cutting led to the senior ranks “being depleted at a dizzying speed” and “a decapitation of its leadership ranks,” Amb. Barbara Stephenson, then-president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), a union for US foreign service personnel, wrote in early November 2017.

“There is simply no denying the warning signs that point to mounting threats to our institution — and to the global leadership that depends on us,” Stephenson wrote.

Tillerson pushed back against such criticisms in an appearance later that month, portraying it as an insult to State Department staff. “I’m offended on their behalf when people say somehow we don’t have a State Department that functions,” Tillerson said. “I can tell you it’s functioning very well from my perspective.”

Such a hit in morale and ranks continued under leadership of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who upon taking office pledged to bring “swagger” back to the department.

Instead, he left it “hollowed out from within,” in the words of ousted ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who told lawmakers during then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment that “as Foreign Service professionals are being denigrated and undermined, the institution is also being degraded.”

“The attacks are leading to a crisis in the State Department as the policy process is visibly unraveling, leadership vacancies go unfilled, and senior and mid-level officers ponder an uncertain future and head for the doors. The crisis has moved from the impact on individuals to an impact on the institution,” Yovanovitch said in November 2019.

The State Department at the time sought to downplay the loss of senior and mid-level officials.

Upon taking office in January 2021, Blinken directly addressed the demolition of morale in the building during Pompeo’s tenure, pledged to listen and to maintain transparent communication with his workforce, and offered praise to the diplomats and career officials who were denigrated under the Trump administration.

However, he did face some skepticism about the career service, with some pointing to the fact that many top appointments were political appointees or former diplomats who left the State Department and were being brought back.