ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo.—For the past few years, the Missouri Department of Transportation has been forced into a real life game of chess, moving staff around the state from district to district depending on where snow conditions required the most plowing manpower. The problem? The agency hasn’t had enough staff to cover all the spots on the board and conceded that staffing shortages meant it would take longer to get the job done.

Ahead of the start of the plowing season last winter, the agency said it was down close to 1,000 employees for what it would need to fully staff two 12-hour shifts of workers in a 24 hour period for a statewide storm. 

What You Need To Know

  • Public employers across the U.S. have faced similar struggles to fill jobs, leading to one of the largest surges in state government pay raises in 15 years. Many cities, counties and school districts also are hiking wages to try to retain and attract workers amid aggressive competition from private sector employers

  • MoDOT has at least two hundred positions open statewide, which in previous years, has had an impact on snow removal efforts 

  • The agency has started holding hiring events where candidates can interview for a job and leave with a conditional job offer. In three events held this week in St. Louis, Kansas City and St. Joseph, 50 conditional offers were extended to new hires who could start just a few days later

  • Two more MoDOT hiring events are slated for Aug. 9 and Aug. 23 in St. Louis. The locations have not been announced

This year, with a few hundred vacancies to fill statewide, the agency joined the ranks of other employers who are offering fast paths from an interview to getting hired. At MoDOT’s Barrett Station Road facility in West St. Louis County, dozens of candidates stopped in over a four-hour period Thursday, and at least 12 left with a conditional job offer. Combined with similar events in St. Joseph and Kansas City this week, a MoDOT spokesperson said the agency extended 50 conditional offers.

“These events give a unique opportunity for the candidates to in a period of just a couple hours  to go through and get an interview and if they get a job offer they can do the drug test, physical screening, work simulation, all the stuff you need to do to actually be able to show up to work,” said Tom Blair, MoDOT’s St. Louis District Engineer.

Those who accepted the offer on Thursday will show up for their first day Tuesday. 

Two more hiring events are coming up in Aug. 9 and Aug. 23 at other St. Louis area facilities.

There will be more pushes through September, when the focus will turn to adding seasonal emergency temporary help that will be needed in the winter. 

Public employers across the U.S. have faced similar struggles to fill jobs, leading to one of the largest surges in state government pay raises in 15 years. Many cities, counties and school districts also are hiking wages to try to retain and attract workers amid aggressive competition from private sector employers.

Missouri gave state workers a 7.5% pay raise in 2022. This spring, Gov. Mike Parson signed an emergency spending bill with an additional 8.7% raise, plus an extra $2 an hour for people working evening and night shifts at prisons, mental health facilities and other institutions. The average number of applications for all state positions is up 18% since the start of last year.

Blair touts MoDOT’s $19.10 starting salary and a fully-funded state pension as he tries to fill roughly 100 positions in the St. Louis region, including maintenance workers, construction technicians, mechanics and electricians. Those positions need to be filled for work to be done now, with an eye toward the ‘all hands on deck’ approach needed when they’ll all need to be behind the wheel of a plow.

The department may still need to be strategic when it comes to deploying staff when winter weather approaches, but the hope is that it would be to a lesser degree.

“We had to do that a lot last year and that's why we're really trying to put for the extra effort to fill all of our vacant positions prior to because you can't just come to MoDOT on December 1st and start plowing snow. You've got to come to MoDOT now,” he said. 

 

Other upcoming hiring events

  • The Fort Zumwalt School District is hosting a “Back to School Interview Blitz” Saturday Aug. 5. Registration is required, but the district promises on the spot interviews for positions ranging from teachers and mental health counselors to maintenance and bus driver openings.

  • Metro will conduct hold interviews for  Call‑A‑Ride Van Operators, MetroBus Operators, and Fuel & Oil Attendants on Saturday Aug. 12 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Barnes Care Center, 5000 Manchester Ave. St. Louis, 63110. 


The Associated Press contributed information for this story.