Since September, America Has Lost One Government Job For Every Five Private Sector Jobs Created
The public sector lost another 13,000 jobs in December, bringing the post-recession job loss total for federal, state, and local governments to more than 600,000. Those job losses — many of which have hit teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public safety officials — have had a devastating impact on the economic recovery. If public sector job creation had kept its pre-recession pace, the unemployment rate would be a full point lower.
Government job losses began to slow earlier this year, but in the last three months, the public sector has shed another 89,000 jobs. And as Demos’ David Callahan noted in a blog post today, that means the public sector has lost one job for every five private sector jobs created in that time:
But here’s a statistic that jumped out at me: 89,000 public sector workers lost their jobs in October, November, and December—with most of those losses, 66,000, occurring in October.
Large-scale layoffs of government workers continue across the United States. Such layoffs undermine local economies and stymie the recovery. For every five workers who were hired in the past three months, one was laid off by government.
