Employment challenges highlighted in American City & County retention survey

Over December, at least nine states saw a jump in their number of available job openings, with most of the rest holding steady at lower-than-normal levels, according to the latest employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s the continuation of an employment trend that’s fundamentally shifted the labor market, prompting employees to reconsider what they want out of a job.

Every sector, including local and county government employment, has been impacted.

“We’ve seen a lot of pressure on local government workforces throughout the pandemic, mirroring what we’re seeing in the private sector,” said Brooks Rainwater, senior executive and director of the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Center for City Solutions. But while many of the pressures are similar, others are unique. “Whether you’re talking about local election officials, government employees, those working in the public health sector, there’s just this confluence of challenges at the local level.” 

When most businesses were adapting to an evolving economic landscape by shifting to remote or hybrid work models, many public employers out of necessity required in-person work. Since the pandemic’s onset, transit, public health and public safety, schoolteachers and other public professions have faced a slew of challenges ranging from belligerent constituents to unprecedented classroom conditions. Then there’s inflation. 

“We’ve seen wages rising pretty significantly in the private sector, and the public sector has tried to keep up as much as possible, but don’t have the ability to do so,” Rainwater said. The ongoing ‘great resignation’ is “something that impacts different size communities in different ways. It’s certainly impacting our medium and large communities. Small areas, if they lose one or two people, it can really cripple a community.” 

The federal data aligns with the findings of a survey of public sector employment conducted recently by American City & County. While a little more than 55 percent of approximately 250 respondents reported their workplaces are either at the same or higher than pre-pandemic employment levels, for example, 45 percent said staffing is below what it used to be—with 16 percent reporting significant reductions. 

Of the reasons why people are leaving public work, retirement topped the list at 57 percent. Another 43 percent said co-workers left seeking better positions, 24 percent reported transfers to the private sector and 15 percent left their fields entirely. Among specific other reasons, respondents highlighted “lack of accountability regarding race issues; low pay; bad management; work-from-home opportunities”; and partisan political disagreements as reasons for departure from public work.  

The leading cause isn’t surprising because “There was already a long-term retirement challenge in (government), just from the general aging in the public sector,” Rainwater said. 

Retaining people amid this time of economic uncertainty is complicated. Governments operate on budgets set by their constituents and don’t have spending flexibility like their private-sector counterparts. Rainwater noted that many communities have tapped into funding allotted through the American Rescue Plan to offer employees pay incentives and retention bonuses. Other efforts have been focused on adapting to pandemic-induced changes through stopgaps.  

Anecdotally, Rainwater noted one community that’s offered parents incentives to drive their kids to school to alleviate a bus driver shortage. 

“We’ve also seen schools close because they don’t have enough employees,” Rainwater said, noting from a human resources perspective, “What we’ve seen communities do is really try, where possible, to introduce remote work. Unfortunately, it doesn‘t work across all job classifications.” 

About 60 percent of those surveyed said their organizations offer some sort of remote work flexibility, be it full-time or a hybrid office-remote situation. A little more than 20 percent said they have access to between about 75 and full-time remote work. Slightly more than half reported they work full-time from an office, with 11 percent working from home and 33 percent working within a hybrid model. 

While the challenges are unprecedented, Rainwater said he doesn’t expect them to last forever. Eventually, the pandemic will end and life will return to something that’s more or less normal. The economy will stabilize, and when that happens, public service will still be considered a desirable career. 

“Inherently, the public sector workforce has a lot of positives that the private sector doesn’t,” Rainwater said, highlighting stability and strong benefit packages. “The short term is very much a continued challenge, but in the long term, these things should start to shake out. The pressures are coming, and local government leaders are doing all they can to drive a positive result, but in the short term, I think we’re going to see the challenges that have been playing out play out for a little bit longer.”