The City of Windsor is working to fill around 200 job vacancies, a figure that’s higher than normal.
The vacancies are across the entire organization due to retirements, attrition, those who found employment elsewhere, and as a result of termination notices given to those who did not meet the City’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
On Jan. 5, 2022, the City announced that 43 full-time and 61 temporary part-time workers would receive letters of termination after failing to provide proof of at least one vaccine dose by Jan. 4.
Jason Reynar, Chief Administrative Officer for the City of Windsor, says around 20 of the termination notices are being rescinded after some employees were able to provide documentation, showing proof they were vaccinated prior to the deadline.
Reynar says they are looking at some of the current vacancies to see if it’s still the right position.
“Does it make sense? Is it still delivering value to the community? Or is it a position that’s been around for a long time but what when we think of where our priorities are now as a community, does it fit? That doesn’t happen every time obviously, but it does and we do look at the positions very carefully,” he says.
Reynar says they are looking more and more for people with transferable skills and a willingness to go where they’re needed as a result of what’s happened during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve had staff redeployed to mass vaccination centres, emergency shelters, all kinds of difference programs that we never thought we would be involved with in 2019,” he says.
Reynar agrees there are challenges filling some positions right now as the labour market is very tight for both the private and government sectors.
“I think people are reevaluating what their priorities are, what they want to achieve from a career perspective, where they want to work, where they want to live,” he says. “Absolutely, it’s a really tight labour market and we’re competing to get good people.”
Reynar adds the number of vacancies is higher than normal as a result of the vaccination policy, but he notes they would typically run with ten’s of openings that happen within an organization with over 3,000 employees.
