KEY POINTS:
Auckland City Council has gone on a recruitment drive only weeks before the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance is expected to recommend the organisation becomes part of a super city.
The prospect of a new super city next year for the whole of Auckland will lead to uncertainty for more than 6300 staff employed by four city councils, three district councils and one regional council.
It is unclear what will happen to the existing councils, but one option is to abolish them for smaller "community councils" empowered to make decisions and run local services.
Many functions will be streamlined under a super city, but it remains to be seen if the new local government structure will lead to fewer - or more - staff.
The March 31 deadline for the royal commission to report has not stopped the region's largest council advertising for staff to "consider coming on board".
Senior vacancies that may disappear in the shake-up include group managers for economic development and marketing and communications.
There are several more jobs being advertised in the marketing and communications department as part of a restructuring, including a new role as "channel and brand manager" to be "custodian of the brand".
Many of the positions can be attributed to normal staff turnover for an organisation with more than 2000 employees, such as planners, engineers and analysts. There are vacancies as executive co-ordinator and executive assistant in the chief executive's office.
Organisation performance general manager Trish Langridge said the council had saved up a lot of jobs for a Herald Career supplement because it offered a good deal.
Asked why the council could not fill the group manager roles using existing staff until the findings of the royal commission were known, Ms Langridge said there was a need for those senior people now and it could be a year or two before the commission's recommendations came into effect.
She said the marketing and communications group manager was a "fundamental" position and there was no one to take over in an acting position in the long term.
The Herald understands the position was advertised last year, but the council was unable to fill it from more than 50 applicants.
The economic development group manager, leading a team of 20, had several big pieces of work to oversee, including a retail strategy for the CBD, tourism and building relationships with the business community, Trish Langridge said.
Most councils have economic development agencies, including the Auckland Regional Council, which launched AucklandPlus in 2005 to be the region's economic development agency. It has nine staff.
The duplication of economic development agencies and communications and marketing will be streamlined under a super city.
Local Government Minister Rodney Hide said there was a "shake-up" coming with the royal commission, a major worldwide recession was under way and "Auckland City Council is carrying on as if it was business as usual".
Mr Hide said the best thing for the council was not to fill the jobs and get by: "Everyone else is having to."
Come on board - but for how long?
* Economic development group manager
* Marketing and communications group manager
* Channel and brand manager
* Executive co-ordinator/executive assistant, chief executive's office
* Transport planners
* Traffic engineers
* Urban designers
* Business analyst
* Procurement team leaders
* Traffic engineers
