ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)– New York State employs nearly 170,000 employees, but is now facing a workforce shortage.

In Governor Hochul’s executive budget, she addressed a state workforce shortage of more than 12,500 people.

“Those vacancies, I believe, is a result of years— decades of privatization and disinvestment in the state workforce,” said Wayne Spence, President of New York State Public Employees Federation.

It’s projected that more than 26% of the state workforce is eligible to retire within the next five years. To help recruit and rebuild the state government workforce, the governor is proposing $18.8 million in the state budget.

One of her goals is to make sure pay is on a level playing field with private sector. She also wants to expand the nurses for our future program and wants continuous recruitment of civil service exams at state-operated testing centers.

The New York State Comptroller’s Office recently put out a recruitment video for it’s Local Government and School Accountability Division that has offices in cities across the state. The division has 330 positions. Just over 40 of these positions are vacant.

https://www.osc.state.ny.us/employment/lgsa

” I have approximately 10% vacancies which is pretty huge when you consider what we do and how we do it. Hence the video and why we’re doing social media,” said Elliott Auerbach, Deputy Comptroller for Local Government and School Accountability.

Last week, Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner, Basil Seggos, said he is happy with the governor’s proposal for his agency.

“She has proposed to give us 231 extra staff. Which we vitally need to implement the Bond Act that voters said yes to last year to carry out the Climate Leadership Community Protection Act. The state’s climate law, getting some extra staff for that as well,” explained Seggos. “You never want to talk about staff being the most exciting thing, but I can tell you the 3,000 men and women at DEC are really excited to hear that there are some reinforcements on the way to this agency.”

If you’re looking for a career with the state, you can head to the New York Department of Civil Service website for more information. https://www.cs.ny.gov/