State and local governments struggle to attract and retain key positions

As more employers have difficulty filling police, fire, corrections, health care and other positions, more than 20% are offering permanent pay increases, and 19% offer targeted hiring bonuses.

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State and local governments, just like private-sector employers, have had to adapt to a rapidly changing workplace in the wake of the pandemic. Several key positions remain hard to fill, especially in fields where governments must compete with private employers.

MissionSquare Research teamed up with several public employer associations to conduct the State and Local Workforce 2022 survey. This survey of more than 300 human resource professionals found several notable changes to public workplaces.

As more employers have difficulty filling police, fire, corrections, health care and other positions, more than 20% are offering permanent pay increases, and 19% offer targeted hiring bonuses. Six percent offer hiring bonuses in a more general or across-the-board manner.

Recruitment strategies vary between state and local entities. State governments are more likely to report hiring permanent remote employees (10%) or rehiring retired staff (35%). Local governments are somewhat more likely to offer position-specific bonuses.

Despite an increased hiring effort, attrition is affecting overall employment numbers. Fifty-five percent of respondents hired more full-time employees in the past year than in 2020, but 69% say more employees were quitting, and 60% say more were retiring. As a result, the state and local government job opening rate between December 2021 and February 2022 was the highest in more than two decades. Thirty-eight percent of respondents experienced an increase in full-time staffing, while 27% report a decrease.

“Comparing the data from the 2021 and 2022 surveys to the change after the last recession, the share of respondents indicating their overall employment had declined from 2008 to 2012 was far greater than the share indicating a decline in either of the past two years,” the survey report says. “This may be related to a hesitance among some government employers to cut staff in their 2020 budgets when the impacts of the pandemic still were uncertain; the rehiring of furloughed staff; or the multiyear impact of the last recession, touching small businesses, housing, Wall Street and governmental sectors.”

Read more: Attract and retain employees with a modern employee benefits program

Meanwhile, many jurisdictions struggled to fill a variety of key positions over the past year. The 10 most difficult-to-fill positions are:

“The position types included in this question are common across state and local government,” the report says. “Some, however, are more typically found in more-specialized agencies, such as county departments of health; local or state hospitals; or utilities; Smaller jurisdictions also may report fewer issue if they did not experience any vacancies for certain positions.”

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