Harrisburg, PA – Secretary of Administration Neil Weaver today announced that the Office of Administration (OA) has reduced the length of time to fill vacant positions by 35 percent since the start of the Shapiro Administration, down from an average of 90 days in January 2023 to 58 days at the end of March. These efforts are helping state agencies to increase their efficiency and improve customer service by filling open positions more quickly. For example, the Shapiro Administration has filled nearly 600 previously vacant permitting, licensing, and certification (PLC) jobs across state agencies, contributing to dramatic improvements in processing times that have reduced or eliminated delays and backlogs.
The current average is the fastest average hiring pace since 2018 when OA assumed responsibility for hiring for state agencies. OA’s goal is to reduce the time to hire by an additional eight days to 50 days by the end of the year.
“We are focused on recruiting talented and motivated Pennsylvanians to serve our Commonwealth and deliver the services our fellow residents use every day,” said Secretary Weaver. “We have implemented effective strategies over the past two years to improve hiring efficiency, including robust recruitment efforts, specialized training, and collaboration across agencies. We also need the commonsense updates in the Civil Service Modernization Act to bring our hiring process into the 21st century. By speeding up the process from job posting to making an offer to a candidate, we’re giving the Commonwealth an edge that can help us attract more top performers.”
Under Governor Shapiro’s leadership, OA has prioritized reducing time to hire so that critical vacancies throughout state government are filled more quickly. OA engaged in strategic discussions with agency leadership teams to pinpoint their unique staffing needs and collaborated with hiring managers on measures to expedite hiring, including:
- Developing and implementing training courses on topics such as interviewing techniques and position descriptions
- Closely tracking seasonal and internship hirings and vacancies to ensure hiring continued without pause
- Establishing timely processing of background check requirements
- Tailoring recruitment efforts to give hiring managers an adequate pool of talented candidates
- Hosting events where job seekers can apply on-the-spot and receive immediate interviews and conditional job offers
- Leveraging generative AI capabilities to streamline the evaluation of 3,600 position descriptions and job classifications
Last year, Governor Shapiro established the Hire, Improve, Recruit, and Empower (HIRE) Committee to ensure the Commonwealth can attract the next generation of public servants, compete with other employers for talent, and recruit and hire for historically hard to fill jobs. In March, OA hosted the second annual Commonwealth Job Fair in Harrisburg with over 40 state agencies, which drew nearly 1,000 job seekers, where the Governor and Secretary Weaver supported the passage of the Civil Service Modernization Act to help the Commonwealth more quickly fill critical vacancies by streamlining outdated 84-year-old civil service hiring requirements and practices. Currently, 70 percent of all Commonwealth jobs are civil service positions.
The Shapiro Administration has expanded opportunities for Pennsylvanians to pursue public service and invested in the employees who currently serve our Commonwealth by:
- Updating medical benefits for employees and their families to reduce enrollment waiting periods for new hires and out-of-pocket costs for new hires. Updated vision and dental benefits to keep pace with the benefits offered by other employers.
- Partnering with a growing number of Pennsylvania colleges and universities to offer tuition discounts to Commonwealth employees and their dependents, including Elizabethtown College, Peirce College, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, Central Penn College, and York College of Pennsylvania.
- Supporting work-life balance by expanding paid parental leave from six weeks to eight weeks, offering new resources to support families and caregivers, and increasing the number of no-cost counseling sessions available through the State Employee Assistance Program.
- Expanding internship, fellowship, and apprenticeship programs to provide learning opportunities and create new pathways to public service careers with the Commonwealth. These include the Information Technology Help Desk Apprenticeship, Governor’s Science and Technology Fellowship, William and Hannah Penn Fellowship, Forms that Suck Less Internship, and hosting fellows from the Govern for America program.
- Emphasizing skills and experience in hiring by affirming that Pennsylvanians can qualify for 92 percent of Commonwealth jobs without a college degree and directing the Office of Administration to review and update jobs where possible to accept qualified applicants without a degree.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is always hiring! Job seekers can go to Employment.pa.gov to browse hundreds of vacancies, apply for openings, and be notified when new jobs are available.
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