Federal government hires away while private sector job losses increase

[hvactec]

11/03/2011
Federal hiring proves to be recession-proof

With all eyes on Friday's jobs report, federal data show a nearly 15 percent increase in the number of executive branch employees since 2007

WASHINGTON — While Democrats and Republicans in Congress fight over President Barack Obama's new jobs bill, it's worth remembering that there already is one bipartisan job creation program the two parties have agreed on since the recession began: expanding the federal workforce.

While overall payroll employment in the United States has fallen by nearly five percent since the official start of the recession in December 2007, there are 12 percent more federal workers today than there were when the downturn started, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

New jobs data will be released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics Friday morning. The consensus expectation among economists is that a total of 95,000 jobs will have been added to payrolls in October. That would still put the total non-farm payroll tally at about 6.5 million fewer jobs than when the recession began in December 2007.

But the federal headcount has been recession proof, growing while many private sector firms are shedding employees or just holding job levels steady.

Nearly 15 percent increase in executive branch
A separate tally by the Office of Personnel Management, which counts most executive branch employees but excludes the Central Intelligence Agency and a few other agencies, shows a 14.8 percent increase in the number of executive branch employees from September 2007, right before the recession began, to June of this year, the most recent month for which the OPM data are available.

Video: Boomtown: Jobs await in ND town (on this page)

About 275,000 more executive branch workers have been added since September 2007, according to the OPM data.

A small part of this growth in federal employment may have been due to the $825 billion stimulus bill that President Obama signed into law in 2009, but the bulk of that money was simply forwarded to state and local governments to sustain their Medicaid programs and to allow them to hire and retain teachers and other public school employees.
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Taking the longer view, going back to the Bush presidency, a report from the Congressional Research Service found last April that that “the federal workforce grew by more than 350,000 employees between 2000 (the low point during the last 12 years) and 2010, with the growth concentrated in homeland security-related agencies, DOD (Department of Defense), DVA (Department of Veterans Affairs), and the Department of Health and Human Services.”

read more, video Federal hiring proves to be recession-proof - Politics - msnbc.com

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Gotta do something t keep the unemployment number from getting to 10%.
Can't let that happen, Obama might lose the election

 

[LilOlLady]

What do you call teachers, firemen, policemen, defense, homeland security, etc being laid off? State and Federal jobs are being cut daily and more jobs lost. More than 200k lost in the last years.


Obama Jobs Plan: $447 Billion, More Than Half In Tax Cuts, To Be Paid For By Super Committee
Genesee County $80.4-million budget would cut 65 more government jobs | MLive.com

 

[Sallow]

What do you call teachers, firemen, policemen, defense, homeland security, etc being laid off? State and Federal jobs are being cut daily and more jobs lost. More than 200k lost in the last years.


Obama Jobs Plan: $447 Billion, More Than Half In Tax Cuts, To Be Paid For By Super Committee
Genesee County $80.4-million budget would cut 65 more government jobs | MLive.com

This is exactly the way conservatives want it.

 

[likeabird03]

The government has become like a tumor that is on the brink of dying trying to feed off itself now that the host organism (the private sector) is pretty much dead.

 

[likeabird03]

What do you call teachers, firemen, policemen, defense, homeland security, etc being laid off? State and Federal jobs are being cut daily and more jobs lost. More than 200k lost in the last years.


Obama Jobs Plan: $447 Billion, More Than Half In Tax Cuts, To Be Paid For By Super Committee
Genesee County $80.4-million budget would cut 65 more government jobs | MLive.com

Actually I'd say we have a long way to go before we bring the public workforce down to size... Let the cuts continue.

 

[Salt Jones]

What do you call teachers, firemen, policemen, defense, homeland security, etc being laid off? State and Federal jobs are being cut daily and more jobs lost. More than 200k lost in the last years.


Obama Jobs Plan: $447 Billion, More Than Half In Tax Cuts, To Be Paid For By Super Committee
Genesee County $80.4-million budget would cut 65 more government jobs | MLive.com

Actually I'd say we have a long way to go before we bring the public workforce down to size... Let the cuts continue.

From your chart we learned George Bush created a lot of public sector jobs and lost a lot of private sector jobs.

 

[likeabird03]

From your chart we learned George Bush created a lot of public sector jobs and lost a lot of private sector jobs.

Who said anything about George Bush? That was not my point at all. Besides, the graph actually shows that govt payroll growth kept pace with private payroll growth during much of that time. Then it shows that during the recession the public sector continued to grow while the rest of the economy was suffering. Hence the kind of deficits we have now.

My point is that we need to rebalance the economy. This is finally happening but people are screaming about it like never before. Eat it up.

 

[Salt Jones]

From your chart we learned George Bush created a lot of public sector jobs and lost a lot of private sector jobs.

Who said anything about George Bush? That was not my point at all. Besides, the graph actually shows that govt payroll growth kept pace with private payroll growth during much of that time. Then it shows that during the recession the public sector continued to grow while the rest of the economy was suffering. Hence the kind of deficits we have now.

My point is that we need to rebalance the economy. This is finally happening but people are screaming about it like never before. Eat it up.

If you read the chart, minus the constitutionally mandated census period, public jobs declined. Who was president from Jan 20 2001 until Jan 21 2009?

 

[likeabird03]

From your chart we learned George Bush created a lot of public sector jobs and lost a lot of private sector jobs.

Who said anything about George Bush? That was not my point at all. Besides, the graph actually shows that govt payroll growth kept pace with private payroll growth during much of that time. Then it shows that during the recession the public sector continued to grow while the rest of the economy was suffering. Hence the kind of deficits we have now.

My point is that we need to rebalance the economy. This is finally happening but people are screaming about it like never before. Eat it up.

If you read the chart, minus the constitutionally mandated census period, public jobs declined. Who was president from Jan 20 2001 until Jan 21 2009?

Bush was. Once again that wasn't my point, my point is that govt employment is at an unsustainably high level. You may not know this that but that blue line is what PAYS for the red lines wages. We've had a weakening private sector supporting a growing public sector.

Also, excluding the census the graph shows that public payrolls peaked in the middle of 2009, when the private sector was near its trough. This represents a total imbalance.

All in all, my argument is not Bush vs Obama, it's that the public sector workforce contraction that we're finally seeing is a necessary pain we need to go through.