Most U.S. public elementary and secondary schools faced hiring challenges for the start of the 2024–25 academic year. October 17, 2024. The top two challenges reported were an overall lack of qualified candidates and having too few applicants, federal data show.

Eighty percent of public school principals or vice principals (or those in similar positions) reported some level of concern about issues related to staffing shortages, such as increased class sizes or staff doing work outside their intended duties.

As of October 2024, 41 percent of public schools were operating with at least 1 non-teaching staff vacancy, which was lower than the 45 percent operating this way in October 2023. This includes 24 percent of public schools operating with multiple non-teaching staff vacancies.

Fifty-nine percent of public schools anticipate having to fill multiple non-teaching staff positions before the 2024-25 school year, which is a statistically significant increase from the percentage of public schools that had such expectations prior to the 2022-23 school year 1 (45 percent).

In this blog we will be presenting public education sector data from the February 2024 release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) data produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. JOLTS data provide national monthly estimates of job openings, hires, and separations.