BOZEMAN - The City of Bozeman raised the minimum wage for city employees to $21 an hour in the Spring of 2021.
The city is now once again looking to raise wages for city employees in order to keep their wages more competitive with the rising cost of living in town.
“Now it's 21 an hour, it's a $6 increase, that's an additional $12,000 wages per employee,” says City of Bozeman Human Resources Associate Stephanie Henry.
The city is set to raise wages for some employees, who are non-represented and in short-term positions starting on May 24.
“We have decided to increase our minimum wage here in the city from $15 an hour to $21 an hour,” says Henry.
The city says it was able to make the wage increase happen from money not used from unfilled positions.
“We have taken all the positions that we weren't able to fill over the last couple of years and have put that back into investing in our employees,” says Henry.
They hope by doing this they will be able to keep pay competitive as the cost of living in the area increases.
“The cost of living in Bozeman has increased a lot and the city recognizes that,” says Henry.
The city hopes that with wage increases and more career fairs throughout the year it will to help alleviate some of the staffing shortages that have affected the city over the past couple of months.
“We are looking forward to actually hosting a career fair every quarter so that we can mitigate some of those staffing shortages,” Henry said.
The city looks to fill jobs in over 10 departments.
“The city is hiring for 40 positions for summer and we have 78 open positions,” says Henry.
City officials say if you missed the career fair held Thursday, they are still hiring. More information can be found at https://www.bozeman.net/departments/human-resources/apply-for-jobs
