California state government is advertising thousands of jobs. How to get started

Looking for work? The State of California is hiring.

California state government is advertising thousands of openings, with some of the state’s largest agencies — including the California Department of Transportation, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Employment Development Department looking to fill many empty employee slots.

To get started, visit jobs.ca.gov. Many of the job openings require the applicant to write a statement of qualifications. Others require a civil service exam.

The hiring follows a huge swing in state revenue forecasts. Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020 signed a state budget the temporarily cut public employees’ pay because lawmakers anticipated a prolonged recession in the coronavirus pandemic.

That downturn did not happen to the extent Newsom projected. This year, he signed a budget with a record-setting $75 billion surplus. His administration also struck deals to restore state workers’ pay.

Now, with hiring back up to full speed, some agencies are looking to fill positions quickly.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, is using social media to encourage people to apply for its available seasonal firefighter jobs, which pay between $3,273 and $4,137 a month. Seasonal firefighters can earn much more depending on wildfire conditions and the length of firefighting season.

Many state worker jobs allow for telecommuting.

Caltrans

Caltrans has more than 300 vacancies throughout the state, ranging from blue collar jobs like highway maintenance workers to white collar jobs such as architects and engineers.

“As one of the largest state employers, the department has many opportunities for training and advancement, and always needs employees with diverse backgrounds and experience,” said Caltrans spokesman William Arnold.

Arnold said that the department is emphasizing hiring in the “Clean California” campaign that’s intended to clean up unsightly highways and byways.

“Part of Gov. (Gavin) Newson’s California Comeback Plan, Clean California is a $1.1 billion effort to increase litter collection by department crews and volunteers, create jobs, and fund transformative projects to change unsightly roadsides into spaces of pride,” Arnold said.

Caltrans is also working to fill its many open engineering positions, said Ted Toppin, executive director of Professional Engineers in California Government, the union representing those engineers.

Toppin said that California is doing “not great, but fair” at filling those open engineering positions, but not for a lack of effort.

“Because of the competitive nature of the engineering market and perhaps because of COVID-19, the department has not replaced the people it’s lost over the last two years,” Toppin said.

“There’s just not enough engineers for all the work there is to do in the public and private sectors,” he added.

Whether it’s clean energy, state highways or water proects, “it’s a competitive market out there and it’s going to get even more competitive obviously,” Toppin said.

Right now, it’s an employee’s market for jobs, Toppin said, because there’s high demand across the state, which has particularly struggled to hire resident engineers and land surveyors.

“If you’re an engineer, come to California,” Toppin said.

Prison health care

One sector of the state with thousands of positions to fill is the state prison health care system.

“California Correctional Health Care Services is actively hiring across many health care career paths. CCHCS is always looking to recruit talented individuals in nursing, medical, mental health, allied health, information technology, and many other administrative professions that support our overall health care mission,” said spokesman Kyle Buis.

The prison health care system has more than 17,000 employees statewide, and currently has approximately 2,600 active recruitments.

Buis said that it can be a challenge to recruit for some of the system’s more remote locations, the system “manages these efforts through expansive statewide sourcing, building relationships with local educational institutions, and establishing a virtual recruiting presence during the pandemic.”

Employment Development Department

Another department that is hiring is the Employment Development Department.

“The EDD is hiring for a number of positions at the moment, including in customer service, accounting and auditing, I.T. and more,” the department said in a statement.

According to the state, funding and staffing were at low levels prior to the pandemic due to near record low unemployment in the state.

“Since then we’ve hired thousands of staff, and currently we have about 2,700 staff in the call center alone, who answer incoming calls and perform processing associated claim filing work,” according to the statement.

This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 6:00 AM with the headline "California state government is advertising thousands of jobs. How to get started."