Oneida County Hiring Under State’s HELP Program

County Executive Anthony J. Picente Jr. announced today that Oneida County Government is hiring for positions that are included under New York State’s Hiring Emergency Limited Placement (HELP) program and will soon be adding more positions under the newly-expanded NYHELPS program.

“Like all local governments, and other employers across the state and country, Oneida County has many vacancies and is struggling to find people to fill them,” Picente said. “By receiving approval from New York State to waive the civil service test requirement, we are gaining access to more candidates and can hire them faster. As more types of positions are added to this list, I am hopeful that we will be able to reinforce our workforce and service to our residents.”

The New York State Department of Civil Service, Municipal Services Division, instituted the HELP program in response to local governments and other agencies experiencing significant challenges filling positions due to the tight labor market, competition with private sector employers and eligible lists that have become exhausted.

The qualified titles that meet the criteria of the program have the civil service examination requirement suspended during the one-year duration of the program. Those hired through the HELP program would ultimately gain competitive status at the completion of the program without having to further test. At the completion of the program, civil service examinations for those approved titles would resume as normal.

New York State approved Oneida County’s request to add the following titles to the HELP program on April 29, 2024:

• Case Managers
• Caseworkers
• Caseworker Assistants
• Probation Assistants
• Probation Officer 1
• Probation Officer 1 Trainees
• Public Health Technician 1
• Public Safety Telecommunicators
• Social Workers
• Code Enforcement Officers (available as village & town positions)
• Code Enforcement Officer Trainees (available as village & town positions)

Oneida County can hire candidates through the HELP program for these qualified titles until April 28, 2025. Interested candidates should visit https://ocgov.net/departments/civil-service/ to see which positions have immediate openings under this new program and to keep abreast of future opportunities.

New York State recently announced an expanded version of the program called NYHELPS that will qualify more types of positions and the county is actively working to include even more titles as a result.