City will slash planned hiring by half

Comptroller cites possible impact of already existing vacancies

Although the city’s municipal workforce has lost 19,000 employees over the past two years, the city plans to slash the number of vacancies agencies can fill by half because of growing fiscal concerns, according to a Nov. 21 letter from the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget. 

The letter, obtained by The New York Times, states that OMB will be reducing “full-time civilian positions that were vacant as of October 31, 2022 by 50 [percent]” as part of its January financial plan in order to "maintain fiscal stability." It also says that uniformed and pedagogical titles, as well as those that support mayoral priorities, would be excluded from the vacancy reduction initiative. The city’s two-for-one hiring restriction, implemented during the pandemic, will be lifted.