The numbers in the table on the right show us that government is getting creative in order to fill open positions and keep organizations staffed to meet today’s challenges. They’re advertising on government and networking platforms, engaging in recruiting partnerships with colleges, and meeting candidates where they are — where almost everyone is — on social media.
And thankfully, the timeless draw of public service still resonates with many candidates, particularly younger generations looking for impactful work that helps the communities where they live.
Creative recruitment tactics are driving down vacancy rates across the board, but there’s even more encouraging news when it comes to IT positions. Nearly 70 percent of organizations reported that IT jobs were hard to fill in 2022, but that number is trending downward, landing at about 40 percent in 2025. While that’s still a big number, the survey shows that it’s not as high as for several other critical roles, including law enforcement and health care.
More governments are establishing IT-specific internships and apprentice programs to build technical pipelines. And while most target college-level students, 37 percent also engage interns that are still in high school.
As we cover in our feature Scouting Gen Z: Finding Next-Generation Gov Tech Talent, many IT internship programs have accrued several years of lessons learned, offering a how-to for other agencies who want to get started with programs of their own.
But once those early career professionals are settled into full-time roles in government, what will their agencies look like?
In our cover story, How AI Is Transforming the Way Government Works, we look at how the work of government is changing in the age of AI. Now that many areas of the government workforce are working with AI as a part of their jobs, what adjustments do leaders need to make?
This story was inspired by a conversation I had with a state CIO a couple of years ago. In response to a broad question about the potential of AI, she had a unique answer among her peers: It’s going to help the workforce. At that time, fears about AI as the great job killer were rampant, but her view was prescient.
In our story, we delve into how workers’ feelings have changed during that time. Through deliberate efforts, government is exposing employees to AI in safe environments, allowing them to experiment and draw their own conclusions about its strengths and limitations by examining how it can help them do their jobs.
The MissionSquare survey reveals widespread use of AI across state and local government — a fact easily confirmed by a scroll through govtech.com. And employees in government writ large seem to hold a cautious optimism for its potential to share some of their workload — the parts of their job that don’t tend to bring much satisfaction anyway.
Georgia CIO Shawnzia Thomas sees AI as a tool that can empower the workforce, “enabling them to focus on judgment, empathy and innovation, the things that humans do best.”
This story originally appeared in the Fall 2025 issue of Government Technology magazine. Click here to view the full digital issue online.
