With the increase in chatter about LG staffing shortages, figured this was the best place to continue this discussion and get it off the individual threads. Noticing a higher number of LG UTF’s on strike teams happening. Also due to staffing levels, seeing a lot more local departments locking down their single resources way earlier than normal.
The staffing shortage is real and not just the Forest Service. Multiple OES Regions have UTF’d orders for either lack of staffing or lack of qualified STEN.
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Yeah, my area in region 6 is holding type 3s right now. We’ve got type 1 ST avail for our of county, but haven’t seen them get the call yet.
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The staffing shortage could and should be its own thread. This problem will only get worse in the near term(3-10yr)
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I’ve heard rumors that cal fire is talking about having a handful of select contractors for engines during to running out of engines last year. Not sure how true that is but I would imagine that they would have to be CSFM certed firefighters and be a last call scenario.
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Our department (8th largest city in the nation) is not sending out any engines, other than OES, and is limiting IMT deployments to 1 or 2 per rank…total. We have over 800 sworn personnel. For clarification, not sending anything out of county. Will respond engines in county.
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Well you know staffing shortages are real when someone is able to make a successful Instagram account based almost solely on the force hires of said department.
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Very true. 
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Yeah, we are a smaller dept and we took on two OES type 6’s to go along with our OES type 1. So it’s changed the priorites of how we send out of county. It limits the amount of single resources we can send out because we need to prioritize the OES apparatus. IMT’s are feeling these staffing shortages in Ca as more and more team members that are LG are getting locked down early in the season. This compounded with Fed staffing shortages is really affecting the teams ability to stay available.
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What do you think the causes are for the current staffing shortages? I can understand a one year lag or glitch in succession training because of COVID, but is there more to it than that?
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I think a lot of causes compound the issue. Internal staffing issues with sick leave, vacation and comp leave, some depts are just super short on staffing to begin with. Those with OES apparatus have to make them a priority to go out. Departments that want to keep their staff back when they have their own high fire danger periods. I’m sure there’s more to add but those are some off the top of my head.
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We have never caught up from a hiring freeze years ago when we were browning out rigs. Other issues are fewer qualified applicants, retirements, and people leaving for other departments for better pay and benefits.
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Is this similar to the State Mission? We will supply cal fire with one of our LG type threes and run out of their stations and basically become a cal fire rig until they release us from coverage
The shortage of people is covering all aspects of firefighting. No only Fire Agencies but a lot of contractors can’t get people to run their service. Caterers, Showers, truck drivers for sleeper trailers, ice delivery, fuel tenders, etc. This is causing real issues on large and small incidents.
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Great question.
IMHO it starts with Demographics
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The Babyboomers (1946-1964 give/take) were the single largest generation in American history. 3.78 births to deaths at the peak. Every generation since then has gotten progressively smaller. The current generation (Gen Z) is about 1.9-2.0. This is causing more people to leave than enter on a pure numbers basis.
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Generous retirement. The 3% at 50 that was the norm fr 1999-2003, but didn’t officially end till about 2010 is removing more and more able-bodied people that with today’s medical progress will live another 20-30yr when you look at the raw numbers. Even with Covid-19 and the slide backwards from 80 to 78.5yr avg death age in 2020. That is still 25+yr in retirement.
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increased workload causing burnout. Ever since the ACA passed In 2010, call volume in some areas has almost doubled(LG & CF Contracts). The increased workload has only exacerbated an already bad problem.
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Generational changes about work. I have 3 kids(22, 18, 13) they are the SM, YouTube generation. All 3 had the exact same 3rd grade teacher. They all learned math differently. The oldest wasn’t allowed to use a calculator till may of the 3rd grade. The middle began using a calculator in Jan of the 3rd grade. The youngest had to have “Internet enabled devise” the 2nd week of the 3rd grade. As technology has progressed, society has more access to information in less time. Gone are the days of research with Encyclopedia Britannica. There is more technology available in the palm of our hands than that used to land Neil Armstrong on the Moon. 4-6yr kids can use Bing, Duck Duck GO, and Google and get information in milliseconds. This creates an expectation of INSTANTLY. Where this profession along with most Blue Collar trades require TIME, EXPERIENCE. As my youngest puts it “We’re built differently”
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“The Vid” Covid has caused such a disruption in society, we still don’t understand all of the impacts. What I do know is this Classes & Academy’s were canceled just as wages were cut and those close to retirement retired last year before the pay cut took effect to preserve the retirement they had earned. I personally know and worked with 5 FC that retired before 6/30/20 so the pay cut CF took wouldn’t adversely effect them in retirement.
And last but not least POLITICAL CHANGE.
Whether we like it or not political Correctness has had an effect.
- The legalized use of drugs(legal & illegal) has had a direct impact on call volume. Look no further than the rapid rise of homelessness and the correlation with drug use.
- In California AB109, Prop 47 & 57 have had a negative impact on the availability of crews. There are arguments that can be made both positive & negative with both of the above. However, those decisions did not happen in a vacuum and we are witnesses to the unintended consequences of those decisions.
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EHOSS, I think you nailed that! I couldn’t agree more.
Our agency is experiencing the exact issue & ha e been for about 10 years.
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The fire service needs to start planning for and adapting to declining applicants. This isn’t just a fire service problem, it’s a public service problem. The military, police, ambulance service, and so on are all having recruitment issues across the board. Less people want to do this type of work. I’m willing to bet if you’ve been around for awhile you’ve seen more people quitting, more complaints to supervisors or the union, and less motivation for the mundane. People are making money in ways that none of us would have ever imagined even 20 years ago. I listened to a podcast with a wealthy entrepreneur that made his money from ebay saying if you told your parents you wanted to be a chef in the 80s they would have laughed at you. Look at all the famous chefs now, all of the reality shows, all of the people making great money cooking on social media. We are in a new industrial revolution, this one just happens to have a lot more money available for a wider group of people and the youth understand the needed technology very well. Traditional fire service models need to be reimagined.
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When over a 150 highly qualified overhead vaporize because feds wanted to play hardball with CFAA, then they must live with the quote: you reap what you sow.
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It’s more than that
The attacks and publicly shunning of all uniformed public safety professionals because of the current social politics is keeping many out of applying to the workforce. I have heard it from many young folks coming out of academies and colleges. They say they are waiting to see what happens politically. You are right about not wanting to work hard in a very rewarding job that does not make you rich.
Add to that the retirements from the hiring bubble of the mid 80s and here we are.
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I agree. I think that one thing the fire service needs to look at is actual recruiting similar to what the military does. We need to get out there and advertise ourselves. Unfortunately when I bring this up the chain I get told that “people know what this job is.” And yet we still get asked things every day like “how long are your shifts?” “Why is there a fire engine on medical calls?” Etc.
Also, I think that the simple fact is that wages and retirements aren’t what they used to be. Many depts still make decent money, but many no longer offer competitive wages. The problem I see is that we compare our wages to other fire departments, we make sure we are competing with each other. The fact is we need to recognize that we are actually competing with the entire job market.
So with us not advertising ourselves or offering competing wages we are basically sitting around saying, “back in my day kids had work ethic and values blah blah blah.” There may be plenty of people out there that still want to be public servants, they may just not know it yet. We have to stop waiting for them to come to us.
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