It’s been a rough stretch for the tech industry, and the job market shows it: Over 1k tech companies have laid off 414k+ workers between 2022 and 2023.

But one employer is still actively hiring, and it’s not Tim Cook or Mark Zuckerberg — it’s Uncle Sam.

The US government is saying, “I want you,” to tech workers looking for their next gigs, per Wired:

• The US Department of Veterans Affairs has hired 1k+ workers into tech jobs over the last year, and increased its average salary by $18k to better compete with private sector salaries.
• The VA has also made its jobs more accessible, recruiting via LinkedIn Live events and advertising remote roles with hubs in popular tech cities like Seattle and Austin.
• A federal tech portal currently has 101 job listings, with some salaries ranging as high as ~$200k.

The federal government is also aiming to hire 22k tech workers into public sector jobs this fiscal year.

The government’s efforts…

… seem to be drumming up interest. In October, 3k+ people registered for a career event hosted by the Tech Talent Project, a nonprofit that helps the government recruit for tech jobs, with 1k more on a waitlist.

Plus, money is flowing into federal tech while Big Tech continues to trim jobs.

• President Biden signed a $1T infrastructure law in 2021 that included $1B in cybersecurity grants for state and local governments.

This could be good for everyone: Unemployed tech workers get jobs and the government gains access to a talent pool of highly skilled professionals.

It’s not without challenges

The government isn’t known for being the fastest, and that applies to the job hunt, too.

It could feel especially sluggish to workers used to the private sector’s more efficient hiring processes.

But the wait is worth it for some pretty sick job titles, like this listing for a director of flight projects at NASA.

Somewhere out there, a miserable parent is explaining why visiting the just-opened World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland isn’t possible as tears and snot amass on their kid’s Olaf the snowman T-shirt.

That heartbreaking scene means all’s going according to plans for Disney — the IRL Frozen extension is the leading edge of the Mouse House’s upcoming $60B investment in expanding its parks and experiences.

Over the next decade, Disney will be “turbocharging” its theme parks, cruise lines, and resorts. And it’s hard to argue with the idea — Disney’s Experiences division expects to hit $10B in profit this year, against $2.2B just a decade prior.

Where’s the money going?

As Disney doubles down, its international properties could get extra attention.

• Landlocked in California and gridlocked in Florida, domestic expansion may prove difficult.
• The international parks are hotter properties right now — higher attendance and higher ticket prices drove overseas income up 100%+ over the last year.

The momentum’s already there, anyway. Before the $60B plan was even announced, many international attractions were in the works, per The Hollywood Reporter:

• Shanghai’s Zootopia-themed area could open in December.
• Frozen lands are underway in both Tokyo and Paris.
• Disney Cruise Lines is building its first seaport in Singapore and readying its second Bahamian port.

All of this, plus its just-launched cruise lines in Australia and New Zealand, was accomplished with the last decade’s $30B investment; just imagine what’ll follow with 2x the cash infusion.

It’s not all dreams coming true, though

Disney World’s recent crackdown on third-party tour guides has drawn criticism, per Insider.

While well within Disney’s rights, the sudden policy change is putting Orlando tour operators — some of whom have run their tours without incident for decades, and plenty of whom make the park accessible for disabled visitors — out of business.

Surely some of that $60B could help build a small business-friendly solution here?

… Ah, who are we kidding? That money’s going toward selling more $600 Vera Wang-designed bridal Minnie Ears.

28.5m: People who watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC and Peacock, increasing viewership 6% YoY and setting a new record for the parade’s TV audience. Just 10k people caught the very first Macy’s parade (then a Christmas parade) in person in 1924. The first national broadcast occurred in 1947.

4 packets of mackerel fillets: The price prison consultant Bill Baroni paid for a haircut while in prison for his role in New Jersey’s Bridgegate scandal. Baroni revealed this in a Wall Street Journal article about how Sam Bankman-Fried, sans crypto, is using mackerel to pay other incarcerated people for goods and services while awaiting sentencing. Apparently, the shelf-stable fish — which costs $1.30 via one Brooklyn jail’s commissary — has become even more popular than cigarettes as prison currency.

~$11k/month: Potential ad earnings for Aitana López, a 25-year-old Spanish model who has 124k Instagram followers. That doesn’t sound all that odd until you find out that Aitana is an AI-generated influencer, created by Barcelona modeling agency The Clueless. Founder Rubeñ Cruz found real models and their egos were too much hassle, but not Aitana — who, once again, isn’t real, but is a “passionate Scorpio” who loves video games.

756,096,000: Number of $50 bills the US government printed in 2022, the highest number of the denomination printed in 40+ years. That’s $37.8B. The $50 bill is typically one of the less frequently ordered bills. During the pandemic, however, Americans began keeping more cash on hand, not to make purchases, but to save — and especially those bigger bills.