Philadelphia adds 700 city jobs amid vacancy crisis
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Mayor Cherelle Parker has beefed up the city's workforce by nearly 700 jobs amid a staffing vacancy crisis.
Why it matters: Parker is reshaping City Hall during her freshman year in office while making big promises to improve city services.
State of play: The number of city jobs rose 2% under Parker's first budget that took effect July 1, according to the mayor's office.
Zoom in: The highest levels of city government received some of the biggest boosts in staffing, including the mayor's office (68 more jobs) and Managing Director's Office (70), which oversees day-to-day city operations.
The police department kept the number of uniformed officers flat while increasing civilian staffing by 127.
- The Streets Department's staffing levels rose by 208.
Some new jobs are allocated for the offices Parker added or reorganized, like the new Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, and the streets and sanitation operations, which she split up.
Context: The number of budgeted positions has risen 12% – that's 3,600 jobs – since fiscal year 2019, per the mayor's office.
Between the lines: 19% of all municipal jobs — more than 6,300 — were vacant as of last month.
The intrigue: The administration is on a hiring blitz to fill open posts while facing pushback for canceling remote-work benefits for all workers last month.
- Parker herself made a personal pitch to lure applicants.
What they're saying: City spokesperson Joe Grace tells Axios that investing in city services requires resources and personnel.
The other side: While adding hundreds of new positions isn't unusual for a new mayor, the city's high vacancy rate could undercut Parker's priorities, Lauren Cristella, president of the independent good-government group the Committee of Seventy, tells Axios.
- "We can add new positions in alignment with those priorities, but without also addressing that huge vacancy rate, we're not going to see improvements to our quality of life that we've been promised."