diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 280dd513635..9977c3c7d37 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ documents those changes that are of interest to users and administrators.
  -- Fix handling of --prefer for job arrays.
  -- Fix regression in 22.05.5 that causes some jobs that request
     --ntasks-per-node to be incorrectly rejected.
+ -- Fix slurmctld crash when a step requests fewer tasks than nodes.
 
 * Changes in Slurm 22.05.8
 ==========================
diff --git a/src/slurmctld/step_mgr.c b/src/slurmctld/step_mgr.c
index 5fb17390575..0c4def82c2b 100644
--- a/src/slurmctld/step_mgr.c
+++ b/src/slurmctld/step_mgr.c
@@ -2135,7 +2135,10 @@ static int _pick_step_cores(step_record_t *step_ptr,
 				job_resrcs_ptr->core_bitmap);
 		}
 	}
-	cpus_per_task = cpu_cnt / task_cnt;
+	if (task_cnt)
+		cpus_per_task = cpu_cnt / task_cnt;
+	else
+		cpus_per_task = cpu_cnt;
 	/* select idle cores that fit all gres binding first */
 	if (_handle_core_select(step_ptr, job_resrcs_ptr,
 				all_gres_core_bitmap, job_node_inx,