Since the depths of the pandemic, nonprofits have been reporting severe workforce shortages that have hindered their ability to maintain services, much less expand to address growing needs.
A new report from the Center for an Urban Future demonstrates that the difficulties continue for charitable nonprofits as they seek to serve their community while struggling to attract and retain qualified staff.
A survey of major human service providers in New York City found that most had staff vacancy rates of 15% or more, including some with vacancy rates of at least 20%. Frontline positions at these nonprofits – such as cooks, residential aides at shelters, nursing assistants, and social workers – experience vacancy rates of upwards of 40%, indicating that direct service-delivery jobs are the hardest to fill.
Putting the data in context, the Center’s Executive Director Jonathan Bowles said, “As the city faces crises and they ask nonprofits to do more, expand their services to more homeless New Yorkers or to add new services for asylum-seekers, many nonprofits are saying 'we can't do that because we don't have the staff to even serve the existing populations that we've been in charge of.'”
From Nonprofit Champion
