While New Mexico’s public sector as a whole has continued to struggle with high vacancy rates since the pandemic, local governments are in worse shape than the state. KUNM’s Nash Jones hosted a roundtable NM PBS’ New Mexico in Focus on Oct. 6 to learn more about the scope of the issue and what’s driving it. Below is an excerpt from that discussion.
At the table were Secretary of the Department of Workforce Solutions, Sarita Nair; Acting Director of the State Personnel Office, Dylan Lange; and Casey Padilla, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 18.
DYLAN LANGE: New data came out that we do have a 23.8% vacancy rate in the state. It's a little bit higher than we want, with at least 30 positions in the state where there's a higher vacancy rate than 30%.
NASH JONES, NMPBS: Sarita, do you have a sense of what we're seeing in terms of vacancies at the local level — at cities and counties across New Mexico?
SARITA NAIR: What I think businesses of all types are feeling right now is what we call the estimated employment gap. And that's the difference between the number of people who are unemployed and the current job posting. So, right now, there's about a 34,400-person estimated employment gap, which means if everyone who is unemployed and looking for a job got a job tomorrow, there'd still be 34,400 vacancies. So, then when we take that down to the government level, government as a whole has basically recovered from the pandemic. So, we hit that mark for state government in about June and now we're up about 1,300 jobs from pre-pandemic. But who's really feeling it is local government. They're still 5,400 jobs short of a full recovery from the pandemic.
JONES: Casey, AFSCME has launched a national recruitment campaign. Can you talk a bit about what you see as the problem here. I mean, what's the recruitment campaign responding to?
CASEY PADILLA: So, we're still trying to just sort through any information we can get to kind of see like what's going on with it. Because some of the things that we're seeing now, some of the jobs that people are looking for are more convenience, right? Like working from home. You know, some of the jobs were able to do that during the pandemic. I think some of the employees enjoyed that as a benefit, right? You have Uber now — you have these different jobs where they can just hit an app and they work the hours they want to.
JONES: So, convenience being one. Anything else that you're seeing as potentially a big piece of this?
PADILLA: Well, I think specifically, like with the City of Albuquerque, they're doing a class and comps study — like their pay rates or compensations. We're kind of working on that to kind of see if that's an issue also, to see where we are competitively.
JONES: So, convenience, pay. Dylan, the State Personnel Office that you direct recently completed a report that touched on some of what's driving the shortages. Can you talk about what was illuminated as important, and whether what Casey's talking about is resonating at all with what you found?
LANGE: What Mr. Padilla was talking about, we are seeing that. And the State Personnel Office is trying to attack the classification issues that may be hurdles to attract more competitive candidates.
JONES: When you say "classifications?"
LANGE: Basically, the job duties and how much you can pay. We are going to be doing a classification study on attorneys to make sure that we can pay them competitively. We just did one for forensic scientists, so we can pay them more. We also did one for HR staff, right? It's some of these harder areas to fill. If we allow ourselves the flexibility to offer more competitive salaries, we hope to attract individuals to come into those positions.
NAIR: And I would just add that the data actually bears both of you out in the sense that state government jobs actually pay more than the average New Mexican wage. They average about $66,000 a year. Whereas, local government jobs do not. They pay about $51,000 a year on average. So, again, you can see that disparity in those numbers as well.
JONES: And why is that?
NAIR: Well, the local government jobs are frontline in a way that most state jobs are not. So, during the pandemic, trash truck drivers couldn't work from home; paramedics, firefighters, cops — there just wasn't that level of flexibility. But also, local governments didn't get — except for the City of Albuquerque and Bernalillo County — no local government in the state got direct aid through the CARES Act or through the American Rescue Plan. And so, they all had to face really difficult decisions about cutbacks and, you know, falling revenue and all those things without any support. And so, I think that's how we ended up where we are here with such a disparity between local and state government pay.
JONES: What are you all hearing about the experience on the ground of public employees?
PADILLA: I mean, it just seems to them like nothing's happening, right? I mean, I believe that the agencies are active in hiring, their hiring process and trying to get people out there like the job fairs that we've been doing. But when somebody comes in new off the street, they're not lasting, right? And with that overtime, it stresses them out, right? I mean, they have other things they need to do at home, whatever it may be. But two people come in, three people leave, you know? Two more come in, five have left. And it's just something that you can't keep up with because of the overtime and the longer hours that they've had to work.
This interview is an excerpt from a segment of New Mexico in Focus on NM PBS, which originally aired Oct. 6, 2023. Watch the roundtable discussion in its entirety — along with a second segment that digs into possible solutions to the issue — at NewMexicoPBS.org.
