Industry News

Recently, the MissionSquare Research Institute published its report, 2025 State and Local Government Workforce: Survey Results. The research found that the public sector is experiencing some emerging trends related to hiring practices and strategies to support relief in recruiting employees.

Some of the key findings include:

• About 60% of state and local governments reported being very or somewhat successful in recruiting new generations of employees.
• The majority of respondents indicated having flexible scheduling policies and 67% of those reported having a positive impact on productivity due to those policies.
• With an aging workforce, over 50% of governments considered succession planning to be very important, but only 61% have a succession planning process in place.
• In 2025, about 70% of governments indicated that competitive compensation was a critical priority, down from 79% in 2024.  
• Over 50% of employers do not provide paid family leave while 39% offer 4 weeks or more of paid family leave.

​The research indicates that the most difficult positions to fill over the past year include engineering (71%), policing (66%), health care nursing (66%), dispatch (60%), corrections/jails (57%), skilled trades (56%) and mental health professionals (53%).

Although there has been some improvement in recruitment and retention, state and local governments continue to deal with a significant workforce challenge due to 46% anticipating an increase in public service worker retirements in the next few years.

Many state and local governments are continuing to deploy new strategies to attract and retain public service workers. Some governments are offering hiring bonuses, increasing salaries, amending degree requirements and job descriptions, expanding recruiting methods and implementing non-traditional benefits or other retention programs. 

The report is available here.