Results of a survey just released by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence provides a concise overview of current issues and trends facing human resources officials. An easy read with interesting perspectives. State and Local Government Workforce: 2012 Trends
http://slge.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/S-L-Govt-Workforce-2012_12-195_web.pdf
The summary - "Top concerns of the survey participants are the public perception of government workers (73 percent), with staff retention, health care costs, and managing workload close behind (70 percent). Governments able to hire have difficulty filling certain positions, including jobs in finance, management, health care, engineering, public safety and corrections, planning and building inspection, and (no surprise here) - INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY."
More than half of state and local governments still have a pay freeze and are adjusting retirement and health care benefits. At the same time, the pace of layoffs has slowed with 28 percent reporting layoffs this year compared with 40 percent last year.
Workforce changes include:
- Employees accelerating their plans for retirement (22 percent)
- Workforce has shrunk since the 2008 economic downturn (68 percent)
- Pay freezes (51 percent)
- Hiring freezes (42 percent)
- Layoffs (28 percent)