US – Government jobs 630,000 below early stages of recession level

The Labor Department’s latest report signaled that a broader economic slowdown is taking place after job growth ticked up last year. The economy added just 126,000 jobs last month — the lowest tally in more than a year.

While the new estimates were disappointing, they’re hardly anything out of the ordinary for the public sector. Collectively, government employment has remained essentially flat over the past few months, continuing a prolonged period of slow growth. Even as private-sector job gains accelerated last year, most governments have yet to experience steady increases in hiring.

The following charts illustrate the current state of public-sector employment:

Public-sector recovery trails private sector

Total state and local government employment peaked during the early stages of the recession in the summer of 2008, reaching about 19.8 million jobs. The Labor Department’s most recent estimates indicate the sector remains about 630,000 jobs below this level. Meanwhile, the private sector has surpassed its peak, although the recovery has been uneven across different parts of the country.

via Weak Government Job Growth, in 4 Charts.