I know this is culture-war stuff, but on the balance I think it's true that the FAA deprioritised applicants from the AT/CTI programmes, that is training courses speficically to become ATCs.
My main source is https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa..., and I'm assuming in particular that the screenshot of the letter in footnote 1 is genuine. In the section ended by footnote 16, there is a claim than in 2014 the FAA sent out just short of 3k job offer letters whereas in 2019 that had dropped to below 1k.
That sounds like cutting off your own recruitment pipeline.
It's also evidence that the FAA did not drop the standards for qualification and certification, which is reassuring.
My main source is https://www.tracingwoodgrains.com/p/the-full-story-of-the-fa..., and I'm assuming in particular that the screenshot of the letter in footnote 1 is genuine. In the section ended by footnote 16, there is a claim than in 2014 the FAA sent out just short of 3k job offer letters whereas in 2019 that had dropped to below 1k.
That sounds like cutting off your own recruitment pipeline.
It's also evidence that the FAA did not drop the standards for qualification and certification, which is reassuring.