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County vacancies top 10%; union and staff warn of service impacts as hiring bottlenecks persist
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Summary
Santa Clara County reported a 10.4% vacancy rate across coded positions; SEIU and county staff debated causes and solutions including hiring delays, extra-help pipelines and potential federal funding at risk for health services.
Santa Clara County officials on Tuesday presented a statutorily required annual report on vacant positions and heard a presentation from SEIU Local 521 that described 2,665 vacancies in union-represented classifications and urged immediate action to fill frontline roles.
County staff said the county-wide coded vacancy rate as of April 2025 was 10.4% and explained the figure reflects current hiring controls. Acting Human Resources leaders told the board that, in a period of fiscal uncertainty, the county has imposed a "soft hiring freeze"—a department-level review before filling many openings—to preserve flexibility and avoid disruptive layoffs if budgets are cut. Employee Services Agency staff said their internal target during a soft hiring freeze is a roughly 15% vacancy rate to maintain operational flexibility while minimizing filled-position deletions.
SEIU vice presidents Joel Verona and Andre Thomas told the board the union's data shows 2,665 vacancies, with high counts in hospital staffing, justice-system positions and social services. SEIU highlighted that the average time-to-fill for SEIU-represented vacancies is 146 days and urged the county to expand programs that create internal pipelines: a clerical transfer pilot and an extra-help-to-classified pathway negotiated in proposed changes to the county's merit-system rules.
Several county employees and stewards using public comment described operational impacts: an emergency-response social-worker said emergency response was operating at "23% filled positions," while hospital support staff described units short-staffed for HSA (hospital support assistant) duties. A Valley Medical Center staff member said PCU staffing often dropped from four HSAs to two on a shift covering dozens of patients, increasing burnout and threats to patient safety.
County staff disputed SEIU's vacancy totals and said their internal count of SEIU-represented vacancies was 1,393 coded vacancies; they pledged to reconcile the discrepancy with SEIU. Administrator James Williams and HR staff said several merit-system rule reforms are underway with SEIU's concurrence and that those changes, if approved, would streamline pathways for extra-help and unclassified employees into coded, classified roles and reduce hiring time.
Supervisors asked for details on the hiring timeline and requested an off-agenda report on how the county plans to shorten time-to-hire, including what steps the county and unions are taking on merit-system-rule changes. The board approved the informational vacancy report and asked staff to present a follow-up on hiring-process improvements.
Ending: Board members said they would continue the conversation at the Finance, Governance and Operations Committee and requested updates about the effects of any federal funding disruptions on staffing in coming weeks.
