The City of Philadelphia employs more than 30,000 people. The Kenney administration has committed to creating a City workforce that better reflects the people it serves, which is why the Office of Diversity and Inclusion has produced an annual Workforce Profile Report since the start of the administration. Now, the City has launched a Workforce Data Dashboard—an interactive visualization of the City’s workforce that gets updated monthly—to provide more transparency into the progress we are making.

Due to the large scale of the workforce, and the regulations set forth in the Home Rule Charter, it can be difficult to understand some of the divisions within the workforce. Read on to learn more about the different divisions of the City government. Then, check out our Workforce Data Dashboard to see the current breakdown of the City’s workforce by race, gender, tenure, salary, department, employment type, and employment category!

The data in this report is broken down by “Hiring Department,” which is the department that makes the ultimate hiring decision for any given position. 

Employment Categories

Employment Categories define the assignment status of employees in City government. These distinctions generally refer to whether an employee is full-time, part-time, or temporary. Detailed definitions for each employment category can be found below:

  • Full-time: Full-time employees work 37.5 hours per week (not including lunch time). Full-time also implies that these employees are permanent employees, or they are not hired for a temporary period of time unless on a provisional basis. 
  • Part-time: Part-time employees work less than full-time hours on a permanent basis. The implication of part-time is that these employees are not hired for a temporary period of time. 
  • Temporary: Temporary employees work on a non-permanent basis. These employees generally have a set period of time in which they work not to exceed six months in any 12-month period. 
  • Boards and Commissions: Many of the City’s boards and commissions require significant or full-time work. People with this designation are appointed to City boards and commissions. 
  • Emergency Appointments:  An appointment for not longer than thirty (30) days made without reference to an eligible list in order to meet an emergency situation or to prevent the serious impairment of public business. These appointments are used in the case of an emergency which could not have been foreseen and which requires the immediate employment of one or more persons to prevent serious impairment of the public business and it is not practicable to secure the needed person or persons by certification from an eligible list in time to meet the emergency.

Employment Types

Employment types are based on the way employees are hired. The general distinction is between employees who are required to go through the Civil Service system and those who are exempt from it. 

  • Civil Service: Civil Service employees are required to go through the civil service process to be hired. The Civil Service process requires that employees meet specific qualifications (or have relevant experience) and go through an examination process to be hired. Civil Service employees make up the vast majority of the City’s workforce.
  • Exempt: Exempt employees are exempted from the Civil Service Process, and may be hired or fired at will.  Employees exempted from Civil Service are outlined in Article VII, Section 7-301 of the Philadelphia Charter.  The majority of the City’s leadership is made up of exempt employees.

Thank you to the City of Boston for sharing details on how their data visualization was created.