Federal Agencies Get Green Light for $400K Pay to Recruit Critical Minerals Talent
Federal agencies will soon be able to offer salaries as high as $400,000 a year via critical position pay for certain positions involved with critical minerals and other national security issues. This as the Trump administration tries to woo certain workers from the private sector.
In a memo, President Trump authorized the critical position pay for up to 400 positions “needed to expand the Nation’s capacity in critical minerals, advanced materials, and other essential components of our strategic supply chain.”
That includes engineers, investment, legal, and financial professionals.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was directed to oversee the program and to approve the pay rates “consistent with market comparability and national security urgency.”
Critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and other resources are vital for everything from electric vehicles to semiconductor manufacturing to missile guidance systems.
The administration is looking for the following workers:
Engineers with expertise in materials science, mining technology, and industrial systems.
Attorneys who can navigate regulatory, international, and national security dimensions of critical minerals programs.
Financial professionals who can evaluate major infrastructure and resource investments at scale, quickly, and with national security implications in view.
Investment professionals such as dealmakers and fund managers that understand large-scale capital deployment.
Targeting Wall Street Dealmakers
In a Secrets of OPM blog post, Kevin Hennecken- a Senior Adviser to OPM Director Scott Kupor– wrote that dealmaking experience is critical and the higher salaries will make it “easier to attract great talent from the investment industry.”
“For too long, the federal government has tried to shore up critical supply chain deficiencies in industries such as semiconductors, shipyards, and critical minerals without enough people with dealmaking experience in these strategic industries,” wrote Hennecken.
Critical Pay Push
The news comes weeks after OPM published a proposed rule changing the requirements around critical position pay to promote broader use.
The rule would allow the OPM Director to approve certain requests instead of the president. It would also set the rate of Executive Level I (currently $253,100) as the default maximum with higher levels allowed with OPM approval and end requirements in current rules allowing payment only in “rare” or “exceptional” cases.
