The federal government is dealing with "unprecedented" vacancies in the Trump administration, and many jobs still have no nominees.
The top jobs at the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives remain unfilled, and there are no nominees for 132 positions and 138 nominees are awaiting Senate confirmation, reported NBC News.
"What we have seen is unprecedented, with consistent vacancies across the government," said Max Stier, head of the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, which tracks presidential appointments.
Constant turnover opens up many jobs, and the slow nomination pace keeps them open.
"There's still an element of musical chairs — filling one job and creating a vacancy somewhere else," Steir said. "(That causes) cascading effects. Somebody leaves, others follow. You're creating disruptions throughout the whole organization."
Trump's nominees are averaging a record show 105 days between nomination and confirmation, which is 12 days longer than Barack Obama's nominees and more than double the time for George W. Bush's.
President Donald Trump has finally put forward a nominee for secretary of defense by tapping acting secretary Patrick Shanahan five months after James Mattis departed the administration, and he has put forward nominations in the past two weeks to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But the administration still has vacancies in 277 top positions out of just over 700 appointments that require Senate confirmation.