Across the nation companies and agencies are dealing with staffing shortages and the Oregon Department of Transportation is no exception.
ODOT spokesman, Don Hamilton says the agencies has 132 vacant positions as of Thursday most of those are in road maintenance which involves snow removal.
"Those are jobs that we need during the winter season if we get hit by a winter storm," Hamilton said.
Though he says there are shortages throughout the state, Eastern Oregon is seeing the biggest number of vacancies and those will affect the metro area too.
"They are always having problems with winter weather in Eastern Oregon our crews in the Portland area will often go help them out," he said.
Hamilton said roads will always get plowed just not as quickly as normal.
"There are going to be more chain requirements slower speed limits," he said noting that those impacts are going to be felt especially on more rural state highways.
"A lot of state roads are going to stay slower they may stay closed a little longer than we'd like we are always going to have to slow down a little bit until we get the roads clear," he said.
Travelers coming back from the holiday may see the impacts of this as soon as Sunday evening or Monday when forecasts call for snow at high elevations.
Hamilton says ODOT crews are watching the I-5 Siskiyou pass into California closely.
"We are always looking out for that that is a high elevation area that often closes when we get into a bad winter storm we are watching that carefully every winter when there is a storm if we can get that cleared get it open we will get it open as quickly as we can," he said.