Industry News

Recently, the MissionSquare Research Institute (formerly the Center for State and Local Government Excellence at ICMA-RC or SLGE) published its report, 35 and Under in the Public Sector: Why Younger Workers Enter and Why They Stay (or Don’t). The Research Institute analyzed the views of younger public service employees working for state and local governments.

The report indicated that the majority (64%) of public sector workers age 35 and younger have positive morale related to their employment and are satisfied with their job security, community service and quality of their colleagues. In addition, the report indicated that younger public service workers are facing challenges with their current financial situation and high levels of stress.

Other key findings include:

• Respondents reported that they were attracted to public service work due to job security (32%), work/life balance (29%), health insurance (28%) and job satisfaction (28%).
• Workers’ main priorities were to contribute to community improvement (67%), strong team dynamics (65%), intellectual engagement and alignment with personal values (64%).
• Overall, the respondents reported that their benefits compensation was competitive in the labor market, but only 53% considered their wage compensation to be competitive.
• About 70% consider their level of debt to be problematic, 22% consider their debt to be a major problem and only 7% are without any debt.
• Although 77% agree they should be saving more for retirement, they indicated that the primary obstacles were other saving priorities and debt issues.
• Almost 50% of respondents are very likely to recommend a public service career to others and 46% plan to remain in the public sector until retirement.

The report is based on a national online survey conducted by Greenwald Research in March and April 2023 of over 1,000 state and local government workers that are age 35 and younger.

The report is available here.