City of Los Angeles has over 7,000 vacant positions

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- If you live in the city of Los Angeles and you're unhappy about city services, it could be because the city has over 7,000 vacant positions. That's one out of every six city of Los Angeles jobs.

"City services are slower. You call up and you want something picked up, and you wonder why it takes so long. That's exactly why," L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said.

Public works, street services and sanitation are all operating with a vacancy rate over 20%. Airports and building safety are around 18%, water and power at 17% and sworn police officers at 16%.

On Thursday, the city held its fourth job fair in Elysian Park with roughly 20 city departments present, with the opportunity to get hired on the spot.

"They're giving you the tools to apply right now, give them the application right on the spot or use their laptops to do the application," said Celvis Santisteven, who is looking for a new job.

"Being a nurse, a physician, to working in animal services, working for the Department of Transportation as a crossing guard, working for the Department of Sanitation on helping us clean up our city," said Aura Garcia, who works for the city of Los Angeles.

Alexis Cisneros now works in marketing for the sanitation department and was hired after attending a previous job fair.

"Something like this is such a wonderful opportunity for the city to reach out to its citizens and the citizens to the city," Cisneros said.

See all the current job openings with the city of L.A. here.

Learn more about the application process and job requirements for the city here.