City of Tucson partners with Department of Defense to recruit staff

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The city of Tucson will work with the Department of Defense to transfer military personnel to jobs with the city. This is because the city is struggling to fully staff many departments.

Tucson Vice Mayor Nikki Lee knows firsthand that the transition from military service to civilian life is challenging. It was a few years before she found a job in IT in Tucson after her service with the Air Force.

“Because it’s not that easy to get out of the military and have such a mission-oriented focus and then translate that into business language, it’s not very easy,” Lee said.

When the Tucson Chamber of Commerce approached her with the idea of ​​partnering with a Department of Defense program that would recruit organizations and corporations with soldiers leaving the military, they saw an opportunity to help others make a smoother transition.

The program is called Skillbridge and pays workers’ salaries for up to six months.

Lee says the partnership will help the city recruit jobs in strained departments that have become leaner from the pandemic.

“We see people referring to the big resignation,” Lee said. “Personally, I like to call it the collective midlife crisis.”

And it will help place people in jobs the city is constantly looking to occupy, like police officers, emergency numbers, and IT staff like themselves.

City council members approved the partnership last week and next week they will start researching where the need is in the city and how it fits into the budget.

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