The City of Austin could benefit from the thousands of federal employees losing their jobs as the Trump administration makes cuts to the federal workforce.
The city launched a hiring campaign this week to help fill the 2,400 job openings it has over the year. The city employs more than 16,000 people in full-time to temporary positions across multiple departments.
The campaign comes just as tens of thousands of federal government employees find themselves without a job during the ongoing wave of layoffs.
Mayor Kirk Watson said this is a chance for the city to attract well-qualified, public service employees.
"The bad news is a lot of great public servants are losing their jobs,” Watson said. “The good news is that they've already demonstrated a desire to provide quality public service, and they want to work on behalf of the people. So we are targeting them and saying there might be a place for you at the City of Austin.”
City Manager T.C. Broadnax said in a written statement the city is hiring for jobs at various skill levels and areas of expertise. But jobs taking priority in this hiring campaign are those with the highest vacancy rates and hard-to-fill positions in fields such as engineering, information technology and health care.
Jobs start at $21 an hour.
Susan Sinz, director of the city's Human Resources Department, said that includes entry-level professionals. The city also has about 90 different job titles with on-the-spot interviews and job offers available.
"We’re looking for local talent, we’re looking for federal, we’re looking just to build our City of Austin workforce," she said.
The city has been successful with hiring campaigns before. In 2023, there was a hiring campaign to address the high vacancy rates after the COVID-19 pandemic. The vacancy rate dropped from 16.9% to 12.9% over a seven-month period. The city’s current rate hovers around 9%, according to city data.
"Anything in the public sector under 10% is considered very good," Sinz said.
Jobseekers can apply at austincityjobs.org or go to the career expo from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Palmer Events Center on April 2.
Clarification: The story was updated to reflect that the city's 2,400 job openings is an estimate of openings over the course of a year.
