This report provides a snapshot of the countywide results for the FY 2022 - FY 2024 Multnomah County Employment Trends, which summarizes trends in County workforce demographics and hiring, promotions, separations, and other employee movements identified and examined from three fiscal years of County Human Resources data.
Hiring and Separations: Balancing Growth and Retention
- Hiring outpacing separations: Comparing data from the previous Employment Trends Report (FY 2020 - FY 2022), the rate of hiring peaked in FY 2022, starting three consecutive years that it outpaced the rate of separations, contributing to overall workforce growth. The respective rates are calculated as the number of hires or separations divided by the total number of employees (regular only, shown in Figure 1).
Hiring a diverse workforce: New hires (people hired from outside the organization) are more diverse than the workforce as a whole. For example, the race and ethnicity diversity index (measured on a scale of 0 (less diverse) to 10 (more diverse)) is 6.2 for the County regular workforce and 6.8 for new hires in FY 2024. As a result, the proportion of hires for many demographic groups is greater than the overall proportion of the regular workforce (e.g., 6% of new hires identify as Queer, compared to 3.6% of the regular workforce as of FY 2024). The efforts to recruit more diverse applicants is showing progress, and the County is becoming more diverse as a result.
This increase in hire diversity also leads to a related separation trend that shows employees are more likely to separate in the first year of employment. Employees with less than 1 year of tenure had a separation rate of 10.6% in FY 2024, compared to the countywide rate of 8.3%. Since new employees are more diverse, the higher rate of separations among employees within their first year is part of why we find demographic differences for separating employees when compared to the County as a whole.
- Voluntary and involuntary separations: There are four types of separations: voluntary, retirement, involuntary and no fault (e.g., layoffs). While voluntary separations declined over fiscal years 2022 to 2024, involuntary separations increased over this period. Although not the only form of involuntary separation, trial service separation is the most common reason provided. This means that involuntary separations will have a larger impact for new employees, which also tend to be more diverse employees. Additionally, the demographic differences that were identified for separations were found primarily among represented employees which make up a large proportion of the workforce (regular represented separation rates shown in Figure 2).
- Separations among Black or African American employees: The separation rate for Black or African American regular employees was 11.0% in FY 2024, compared to the countywide rate of 8.3% (all types of separations combined, shown in Figure 3). Notably, in FY 2024 the separation rate was highest for higher-level positions (senior managers and leadership) and lower among frontline employees, indicating a need for retention efforts at all levels of the organization.
- Why are employees leaving? In exit surveys completed by employees who are voluntarily leaving the County, the most common self-reported reason for leaving in FY 2024 (other than retirement) was for other employment or to go to school. Similar to sentiments expressed in the Countywide Employee Survey, employees who separated also frequently commented that they appreciated their team, felt they had professional development opportunities, and found meaning in their work of supporting the community. However, employees also commented on lack of advancement opportunities and stress related to workload and understaffing.
High Retention and Development, Limited Advancement Opportunities
- Retention: The median employee tenure at Multnomah County in FY 2024 was 6.7 years, which is nearly double the U.S. median of 3.9 years (as of January 2024[1]). This means that half of the County workforce has been employed by the County for 6.7 years or longer.
- Employee development: Employees generally report feeling that they have access to professional development opportunities and many also report feeling supported by their manager (based on exit survey data from voluntary separations only). However, areas where development opportunities could be improved include the onboarding process for new employees and the succession planning process for existing employees.
- Internal opportunities: With only 5.7% of employees experiencing a promotion in FY 2024, direct promotions occur relatively infrequently. This is a trend seen across the government sector, which had a median promotion rate of only 4% in FY 2022.[2] One additional finding from the exit survey completed by about half of voluntarily separating employees is that Black or African American employees were more likely to agree that they had opportunities to advance.
Workforce Diversity Increasing
- Growing racial and ethnic diversity: Our workforce is becoming increasingly diverse, particularly among frontline and new employees (Figure 4). This highlights an opportunity to support these staff throughout the employee journey as they prepare for more advanced positions and intentional onboarding support for a diverse workforce.
Focusing on multiple and intersecting aspects of diversity: While data in Workday about employees’ race and ethnicity are fairly complete (with minimal missing data), the same is not true for other demographics (e.g., disability status, gender identity, and sexual orientation). As a result, it is difficult to assess the change in diversity of these demographics in the same way. However, based on the limited data available, it does appear that the County is becoming more diverse in a multitude of intersecting ways across these demographics. More complete data can be helpful for future analyses.
Employees can provide their information by entering it into their Workday profile. However, we acknowledge that some employees may not feel safe providing their demographic information in all cases. Employees who would like to provide a response without providing a specific identity can select “prefer not to answer” as their response. Even providing this information can be helpful for future analyses.
Changing workforce composition: This organization is experiencing a transition as Baby Boomer employees retire and more Millennials and Gen Z employees join the County (Table 1). This shift brings new perspectives and opportunities for innovation, as well as the need to ensure expectations of work are aligned.
Table 1: Multnomah County regular workforce by generation, FY 2020 - FY 2024 Fiscal Year Generation not provided Silent Generation Baby Boomer Generation X Millennial FY 2019 0.0% 0.1% 23.6% 47.7% 28.3% FY 2020 0.0% 0.1% 21.2% 47.5% 30.8% FY 2021 0.0% 0.0% 18.8% 47.8% 32.6% FY 2022 0.0% 0.0% 16.0% 46.6% 35.3% FY 2023 0.0% 0.0% 14.1% 44.6% 37.7%
Our Workforce: Growth and Structure
- Stability after growth: Multnomah County experienced a period of growth between FY 2021 and FY 2023, during which the organization grew from 5,224 to 5,930 regular employees. The size of the workforce remained relatively stable in the following fiscal year, at 5,830 regular employees (Figure 5).
- Structure: Frontline, non-supervising staff (those who do not manage other employees) made up 89% of the entire workforce across all employee types in FY 2024 (Figure 6). This means that, when accounting for all levels of management (including middle managers, senior managers, and leadership in addition to frontline managers), there are approximately eight frontline staff for every managerial role across all employee types. It should be noted that because it depends on a wide range of factors — such as the complexity of the work, employee turnover, and geographic spread of the work[3] — there is not a single ideal frontline staff-to-manager ratio for all types of work.
[1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2024, September 26). Employee Tenure in 2024 (USDL-24-1971). Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/tenure.pdf
[2] Society for Human Resource Management. "SHRM Benchmarking: Human Capital Report." 2022. Retrieved from: https://www.shrm.org/content/dam/en/shrm/research/benchmarking/Human%20Capital%20Report-SECTOR-GOVERNMENT.pdf
[3] Bell, G. D. (1967). Determinants of span of control. American Journal of Sociology, 73(1), 100-109.