Since the pandemic, a healthy number of industries have seen tremendous growth in employees as they’ve recovered all—and some much more—of their workers. Four major job sectors, however, are still lagging behind, one of which is the teaching profession.
Government jobs are experiencing the second-biggest shortage of workers, CNN reports. Specifically, there are four major industries that have yet to recover: leisure and hospitality, government (which includes public school teachers), “other services” and mining and logging, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As for government jobs, a large majority of the shortage of workers stems from a lack of public school teachers. According to CNN’s analysis of the data, there were 118,000 fewer teachers nationwide in May compared to February 2020.
Similar to other job industries, a great number of teachers quit during the height of the pandemic amid fears of contraction Covid.
“We’re not seeing people come back into the workforce fast enough as they are in other sectors to recover some of those jobs,” Jim McCoy, senior vice president of talent solutions for ManpowerGroup told CNN.
School districts across the country, including high-profile government officials, hope to reverse this narrative. For instance, Atlanta Public Schools recently approved its new $1.6 billion budget, which includes improvements to teacher pay.
According to 11Alive, there is nearly $60 million set aside for teacher compensation alone, which the Board of Education said is a reflection of their views of their teaching staff as their “most valuable resource.” The budget also calls for a $2,000 increase in base pay for teachers.
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As for lawmakers’ efforts to tackle the issue, governors in at least 21 states outlined proposals for improving teacher compensation during their 2023 State of the State Addresses, according to a compilation of summaries put together by the Education Commission of the States.
These interventions come at a time when teacher dissatisfaction surrounding their salaries has been labeled as “a perfect storm brewing” by the National Education Association. According to their most recent analysis, the average salary of teachers has declined an estimated 6.4% in the last decade when adjusted for inflation. Yet, as recent strategic efforts suggest, experts hope to see a positive transition soon.
“We’re seeing evidence in the last year and a half that school districts and colleges have made some headway in terms of wage gains to keep up with the cost of living for their employees,” McCoy told CNN.
