ALBUQUERQUE, NM (KRQE) – Like most places these days, the city of Albuquerque has few staff. So they try to fill dozens of vacant positions.
At the Eagle Rock Convenience Center landfill in Albuquerque City, the only thing that isn’t wasted here is time. Everything is on deck because the solid waste department is looking for more than 60 employees. “69 vacancies may not sound like much, but it really is because we provide many of the essential services to the city,” said Jill Holbert, associate director of Solid Waste Management.
Services such as graffiti cleaning and recycling. They are specifically looking for some of the more difficult positions to fill, such as mechanic, driver, and heavy truck driver. But they claim even though they are under staffed the public will not notice and they will not miss their garbage collection.
“But it [filling vacancies] would certainly help our employees because they work overtime, because that’s our first choice when we have bottlenecks, ”said Holbert. “Our employees move up and work overtime, and there may be some instances of queues in the consumer centers, but for the most part I believe the public doesn’t know about it because our employees are increasing and our services are seamless.”
Solid Waste isn’t the only department faced with bottlenecks. It is unclear exactly how many jobs the city has, but there are more than 120 job postings online. Each posting could try to fill several positions. In August, the city began offering hiring bonuses to attract people. Certain positions such as police officers and paramedics could redeem a $ 15,000 hiring bonus and other positions such as heavy machinery operator for solid waste could receive an additional $ 750.
“These operators are extremely talented people,” said Holbert. “Honestly, they make it look easy, believe me, they make it look easy.”
The hiring awards will continue for the remainder of the year. KRQE News 13 asked the city how many positions they filled after the hiring bonus was rolled out, but they didn’t give a number, just that they were encouraged by the hires they made and the amount of applications they still see are.
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