Happy weekend, readers! The latest jobs report came out this week and not only did we continue to make robust monthly job gains, the public sector looks like it’s on a hiring spree. It’s a vastly different picture from a year or so ago when folks like me were warning that the public sector might not regain all its pre-pandemic jobs.
This week’s newsletter offers some insights and more predictions on the changing state and local workforce numbers.
Local government leads the way in hiring
The public sector drove job gains in December, with government employment increasing by 52,000 jobs, according to the latest labor market data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The public sector added an average of 56,000 jobs a month in 2023, more than double the average monthly gain of 23,000 in 2022 and far outpacing pre-pandemic average levels, reports MSN.com.
Moreover, the public-vs-private sector job growth picture is very different from the previous December.
Of the 52,000 public sector jobs gained last month, nearly nine in 10 of them were in state and local government. And local government, which lost the most public sector jobs during the pandemic, accounted for two thirds of those gains.
State and local workforce recovery has dragged compared with the private sector. Just a few months ago, state and local government jobs were still behind their pre-pandemic numbers. The private sector, on the other hand, had recovered a year earlier.
But if current numbers hold, it means that local government jobs have officially recovered from the pandemic.
The state government employment recovery has been more erratic, but it hit the magical mark back in October.
Government employers are catching up in a normalized job market
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