Locals looking for a city paycheck will now have a better crack at its job openings.
Starting this month, the city will give a small boost in hiring preference for those who live, work, study and apprentice in Long Beach. A greater boost will be given to veterans and their spouses.
Both will factor in hirings across the city’s 23 departments, including positions at the airport, seaport and Utilities Department.
Currently, 47% of the city workforce is local, a slight uptick from 2024 and 2023.
Applicants can earn five points for meeting one of the local preference criteria, up to 10 points for meeting two more of them. Separately, veterans earn 10 points, while those former military with a disability earn 15 points.
How much local preference and military service helps depends on the position and its application process.
Typically, scores for a city job application range from 70 to 100 points, with the former being considered the minimum passing score. The announcement is a promised change under the passage of local measure JB, passed last November by Long Beach voters, that consolidates the Civil Service and Human Resources departments, which both had a hand in hiring processes.
The merger, according to supporters, is meant to hasten the city’s hiring from historically sluggish to an average length of 90 days.
“Measure JB, the Long Beach Jobs Promise, laid the groundwork for stronger local hiring and economic opportunity,” said Mayor Rex Richardson. “By hiring locals, we’re committed to fostering a workforce rooted in community and equity, giving residents and the next generation of public servants the chance to build meaningful careers while making a real impact in their hometown.”
City job openings vary by the day, though in the past week have floated between 20 to 40 positions. Fred Verdugo with the Human Resources Department said workers are reviewing another 102 backlogged requisitions that will go online soon. Officials said there can be more than 500 different types of jobs available.
All candidates must first go through the initial screening and assessment to see if one qualifies for a position.
A city spokesperson said they will soon unveil a dashboard that shows the results of the merger on local hiring, adding that unclassified city positions have met the 90-day average goal.
“We can now turn things around in twenty-four to forty-eight hours that, relatively speaking, would have taken one to two weeks to get done,” Rico said.
The city vacancy rate has dropped, he said, from 22% down to 17% in the past year.
“We needed a little more time to get this ship moving, but it’s going in the right direction,” Verdugo said.
For more information on eligibility, visit here. Click here to review current openings.