The Public Sector Workforce of Tomorrow: Key management considerations for recruitment and retention in a post-pandemic environment.

• Author: Franzel, Joshua

Amid continued uncertainty, one thing is certain: the future of work doesn't look like its past. With insights from recent research and a roundup of trends, this article examines how the public sector is shifting its approach to recruitment, retention, and employee engagement.

In spring and summer 2022, more than two years since the declaration of the COVID-19 public health emergency, state and local governments across the country find themselves in one of the most challenging workforce development environments they have faced in the last 50 years. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Current Employment Statistics survey, as of April 2022, the sector remained approximately 700,000 positions down from its all-time peak in February 2020, with reductions across most of the major public sector industries-education, general administration, utilities, and transportation. This continued decrease is the result of a range of factors including in-person staff reductions implemented during the early stages of the pandemic; constrained compensation structures; medium- and longer-term budgetary concerns; heightened competition for skilled employees among the public, private, and nonprofit sectors; and unprecedented levels of job openings and turnover.

Through its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, BLS tracks major, standardized job change categories by sector and industry going back to 2000. When analyzing the rates of openings and turnover over time, several noteworthy trends surface. As of the May 2022 survey release, which reflected data up through March 2022, the job opening rate was at its highest point in more than 20 years from December 2021 to February 2022, while hiring was at its highest rate toward the end of this three-month period. At the same time, the quit rate was at a 20-year high in October 2 0 21 and the other separations rate, which includes retirements, had a 20-year peak in summer 2020 (which coincided with the conclusion of the first school year of virtual learning for many districts). Belatedly, in the MissionSquare Research Institute, International Public Management Association for Human Resources, and National Association of State Personnel Executives' annual workforce survey for 2022, 53 percent of human resource directors reported that retirement-eligible employees were accelerating their retirements, up from 12 percent following the Great Recession.

WORKFORCE DRIVERS

To better understand how...