The City of Toronto’s hiring problem
In his excellent December 2015 article Mind the Gap: Gapping 101 Neville Park gives us a startling chart:
This shows a large increase in vacancies from 2008 to 2012, sustained from then on. The 2016 Toronto final variance report (subsequent to the above data) confirms an overall (operating and capital) staff shortfall of 5.2% for that year.
Here’s a ranking of the programs that seem to be having the biggest problems (ranked by % positions left vacant):
Here’s a ranking by the number of positions left vacant:
Note that for both these rankings I’ve only included programs which have approved staff complements of 100 or more. Also these numbers are full-time equivalents (FTE), so more people are actually involved when part-time positions are factored in.
Overall Toronto left almost 3,000 (2,847.1) positions going begging in 2016. That’s a lot! And it means that many planned services and projects can’t be delivered.
So what’s going on? Anecdotally, there are many applicants for advertised City positions. Mr. Neville cites bureaucratic blocks. I have an additional theory that may merit investigation: the most qualified people may not want to work at the City because it’s no fun. Meaning there are too many roadblocks to getting things done. I’ve talked to many people over the years who have left City employment, or wouldn’t consider it, for that reason.
Keep in mind that the City now pays a premium of about $1B in extra pay above inflation and growth of the civil service in proportion to population, which should mitigate competition by wages. Besides, good people like doing good things, so with the right working conditions you would think these positions could be filled.
I’ve also heard staff say that program managers are hesitant to hire in a climate of austerity, as Council keeps insisting on down-sizing. In fact anecdotally managers are rewarded for underspending, not for accurate spending. Saving money on staff may also provide more funds for contractors. But why the change over the past few years?
In any case, this seems to me to be a clear management red flag (warning signal), that should be investigated and resolved.
Henrik Bechmann founded the budgetpedia project in July of 2015, and is currently the project lead (see budgetpedia.ca). The opinions expressed here are his own.
