It's the government, so don't even try to make sense out of it. They could be hiring 200 people this week and then next week the government will shut them down for good.
I do think that the Navy is under a hiring freeze so I don't know what's going on with the Blues and their hiring.
**OK, I read the article again and it looks like they're hiring active duty people. By "hiring", it made it sound like they are hiring civilians. I think it's meaningless that they are recruiting for active duty people in trying to read what their future schedule will be. They are just going on with operations as normal.