I must admit I was somewhat surprised when I saw this story claiming that state and local governments were hiring robustly again, based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics' survey of job openings and turnover. I'm never one to doubt that local school boards and public safety officials will find a way to hire even amid bad budget news, but the pressure on state and local budgets is so great and shows so little sign of abating that I couldn't help wondering where the money might come from. So I took a look at the BLS's employment database, which tells quite a different story about the first several months of this year.
State and local jobs remain flat at best, and perhaps down a bit over the first several months of the year, according to the BLS database. On a seasonally adjusted basis the number of local jobs has fallen every month except June. State government jobs have risen slightly but combining the two is essentially a wash. You can also look at the same database without any seasonal fiddling, comparing job totals in any given month with the same period last year. In that case, employment continues to fall modestly (see chart on state employment, not adjusted above), continuing a trend that held for much of last year, too.
What could account for the differences in the databases? For one thing, there seems to be a local government retirement surge going on as employees who for most of their careers got free health care and didn't have to contribute to their pensions are suddenly being asked to pay more. Many of those are apparently opting for retirement, and some of the hiring may be to replace them. Indeed, the BLS turnover survey shows that 'separations' are very high, too, higher actually during the first four months then they were in the same period in 2009 and 2010, when the impact of the fiscal downturn first started to bit into employment.
These numbers are national, and of course not uniform among the states and cities. Some are hiring, as the USA Today story suggests. But employment levels in general remain down relative to the peak, and there's certainly nothing in the data to suggest the number of state and local government jobs is increasing dramatically yet.
The larger issue is, what is the optimum level of employment for states and cities? Some public officials justify hiring on the basis that they are rebuilding their workforce as the economy stabilizes (though that may be premature given that many economic indicators, including tax collections, are starting to trend in the wrong direction again). But some governments hired so robustly during the boom years that staffing way back up again might not be possible, especially when you consider that despite the cutbacks of the past few years, pension and health care costs continue to rise, driving up the average cost of employing a government worker.
What could account for the differences in the databases? For one thing, there seems to be a local government retirement surge going on as employees who for most of their careers got free health care and didn't have to contribute to their pensions are suddenly being asked to pay more. Many of those are apparently opting for retirement, and some of the hiring may be to replace them. Indeed, the BLS turnover survey shows that 'separations' are very high, too, higher actually during the first four months then they were in the same period in 2009 and 2010, when the impact of the fiscal downturn first started to bit into employment.
These numbers are national, and of course not uniform among the states and cities. Some are hiring, as the USA Today story suggests. But employment levels in general remain down relative to the peak, and there's certainly nothing in the data to suggest the number of state and local government jobs is increasing dramatically yet.
The larger issue is, what is the optimum level of employment for states and cities? Some public officials justify hiring on the basis that they are rebuilding their workforce as the economy stabilizes (though that may be premature given that many economic indicators, including tax collections, are starting to trend in the wrong direction again). But some governments hired so robustly during the boom years that staffing way back up again might not be possible, especially when you consider that despite the cutbacks of the past few years, pension and health care costs continue to rise, driving up the average cost of employing a government worker.
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