City leaders in Oakland were outraged as a new staffing report from Oakland’s Human Relations Department released this week showed roughly 1,000 city jobs were vacant. The new report shows 839 vacant city positions, and a 19.69% vacancy rate citywide. Part of the reason? The two city departm ents with the highest vacancy rates are the Department of Workplace and Employment and the HR Department. Other large, critical departments with high vacancy rates include the city’s Planning and Building Department and the Department of Transportation. The Department of Transportation alone had 119 vacant positions.  “I think this is frankly disgraceful, I don’t even have concrete questions because this was shocking to me, that the numbers increased since last year, that it’s been the highest since the pandemic,” Oakland Councilwoman Janani Ramachandran said. “There are so many positions, front line, service delivery positions, street sweepers, engineers, things that effect everyday public life that a qualified Oakland residents want to have as jobs and they’re not even on the website.” “One announcement can cover multiple jobs, so just because you see 20, that could fill 68 jobs,” Oakland’s HR Manager Amber Lyttle said. Oakland’s HR Director Mary Hao and her team explained that roughly half the vacant positions are unfilled because the specific departments have been slow to submit the proper paperwork and hire. “51% of those positions, or 434 of them, actually have no activity. We’re not able to act on them because there’s no requisition or they’re on hold by the department for various reasons,” Hao said. “Let’s cut through the niceties,” Oakland Councilman Zac Unger said. “If it’s the department, then let’s figure out the department, if it’s HR, if it’s budget finance. I still can’t tell where the bottle neck is and that’s what I’m trying to figure out for years.” City Administrator Justin Johnson added another layer to the situation, saying department heads are often weighing filling positions but also keeping to a tight budget. Oakland isn’t the only city struggling with vacancies. City leaders said Hayward and Richmond struggle with high vacancy rates as well. ...read more read less