What Public Sector Jobs Are Most Understaffed?

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As of July 2022, there were 1.1 million job openings at the local, state, and federal levels, which is almost double the number just five years ago.

The public sector has long been seen as a stable, steady place to build a career. This is particularly the case for groups that have historically been passed over for employment and advancement in the private sector, such as Black workers and women.

Although government hiring is not immune from discriminatory practices, it tends to have more safeguards in place than the private sector. Since the 1960s, the government has slowly removed barriers to hiring and promoting Black workers as part of anti-discrimination efforts.

The common conception was that government jobs offer more job security, while private sector jobs offer higher salaries or faster advancement.

However, after the Great Recession, the view of government jobs as a safe harbor changed. The loss of public and private jobs, combined with the public sector鈥檚 painfully slow recovery, has made government work appear less secure than it used to be.

The Great Recession鈥檚 steep public sector job losses also led to disproportionately higher Black unemployment. Black women were particularly hurt, with the wealth gap between Black and white women increasing sixfold.

Over a decade later, nearly 1 in 5 Black workers were still employed in the public sector. This means the slow government recovery is once again projected to hurt Black workers in particular.

Federal Jobs

The Partnership for Public Service and Boston Consulting Group鈥檚 survey of federal employees found that various measures of worker satisfaction and morale had dropped in 2021, sometimes quite sharply.

The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey reported that pay was the top issue across the board, showing a 5.8% decrease in satisfaction from the previous year. The survey found that pay and innovation 鈥渨ere the only workplace categories where scores dropped at large, midsize, and small agencies.鈥�

But the pain is not borne equally throughout the federal government. The Department of Homeland Security, the National Labor Relations Board, and the Federal Election Commission were each the lowest ranked in the large, midsize, and small agency categories respectively.

Besides Homeland Security, which often ranks at the bottom, other large agencies with low job satisfaction were the Justice Department and the Social Security Administration. The Justice Department saw an eight-point decline in overall satisfaction, one of the steepest drops of any large agency.

Federal agencies with the highest satisfaction include NASA, which has led in the large agency category for ten years, and the Government Accountability Office.

But even those at the top of the list saw morale slip, with satisfaction at both of these top performers dipping.

State and Local Jobs

The federal government, as part of its pandemic stimulus response, sent out billions of dollars to state and local governments to retain and hire workers lost during the initial downturn. But vacancies remain high because state and local governments can鈥檛 compete with private sector salaries, even with the cash infusions.

Worse yet, the biggest shortages are among essential workers like those in emergency services, teachers, and garbage collectors, despite concerted efforts in some cases to boost pay and incentives.

Police departments are struggling to recruit and retain officers, resulting in some cities operating with skeleton crews and others moving homicide or major crimes detectives to patrol duty. Meanwhile, a shortage of dispatchers has created delays in 911 call centers.

Firefighters are also in short supply. Seattle鈥檚 dwindling number of firefighters have put in extreme amounts of overtime, leading to a city record of $37.7 million in overtime pay in 2021. Even areas far from wildfire hotspots 鈥� such as Atlanta and South Carolina 鈥� are having trouble keeping their fire departments staffed.

Emergency medical services are also seeing startling shortages in localities nationwide. Minnesota, for example, saw 60% of the state鈥檚 EMTs leave the profession last year.

Trash collection also saw near record quits and retirements during the pandemic, while other crucial local services, like fixing potholes or driving buses, were scaled back.

Like those at the federal level, state and local shortages are driven by low satisfaction with compensation. A June 2022 survey found that 44% of these workers believed their wages were competitive with the private sector, compared to 61% in 2016.

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