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Long Beach Cuts Average Time-to-Hire to 90 Days
By Staff Writer
Published on Wed, May 27, 2026
The City of Long Beach has reached a major milestone in its efforts to modernize hiring and fill vacant positions faster across city departments.
Long Beach has successfully reduced its average time-to-hire for classified positions to approximately 90 business days, achieving a key goal established following last year’s merger of the Civil Service and Human Resources departments.
Before the merger, the hiring process for many positions often stretched beyond seven months, with some recruitments taking more than a year, and in some cases, even longer. The outdated system created challenges for departments trying to fill vacancies and maintain services for residents.
The reorganization, approved by voters through Measure JB, merged the City’s 109-year-old Civil Service system and Human Resources into a single department focused on improving efficiency.
Since the merger, the City has seen significant improvements across several areas of recruitment and hiring:
- Average time-to-hire across classified positions has dropped to about 90 business days
- Requisition approvals — the process used to authorize hiring for vacant positions — have been reduced from an average of 20.9 days to 9.7 days
- Since last October, community-centered hiring preferences already been applied to 22 recruitments, with 247 candidates qualifying for preference points
- Vacancy rates have decreased from roughly 22% to 16.4%
These hiring reforms are part of a broader effort to streamline recruitment, expand promotion opportunities for employees and attract top talent to Long Beach.
Looking ahead, the City plans to build on the progress made under Measure JB by expanding workforce development efforts, strengthening community partnerships and improving access to City jobs. The City also plans to continue reviewing hiring policies and tracking recruitment data to maintain the 90-business-day hiring target and further streamline the hiring process.
The progress marks an important step toward building a more accessible and responsive hiring system that better serves employees, applicants and the Long Beach community.
