The Working World

Public Sector Jobs: Going, Going…

The New York Times reports today that states are using furloughs to save money, and save jobs. But in our daily Screwed report, we’re seeing a different trend: public sector jobs are dropping off by the thousands – by our count, of those we reported, which were mainly in the biggest cities, schools, states and cities have laid off 12,000 people in the last two months. And that’s a low estimate, since we haven’t captured them all.

Slate has attempted to capture them all by taking unemployment data reported by counties across the country – this is the raw data that the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses, several months after the fact, to estimate the number of job gains and losses.

In an interactive chart that uses that data (not seasonally adjusted), Slate seems to show some good news: Would you believe 2.7 million jobs (in all sectors) gained since January 2006? We wouldn’t. So take another look: Press the play button on the chart and month after month, those gains drop off, hitting a low of 97,000 jobs gained in June 2008, to be followed by the more familiar trend — 44,000 jobs lost in July 2008, and falling. And the biggest pain came in September, when the number of jobs lost jumped from 89,000 in August to 730,000. Ouch.

The chart is broad, capturing jobs of all kinds. It’s the public sector losses that are most disturbing. The Times story reports a trickle-down impact of the losses and the furloughs, like thousands of disability claims going unfulfilled. The states’ best hope is to position themselves for some of the stimulus money. Our hope is that, in the meantime, no more teachers lose their jobs.

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Tags: budgets, cities, layoffs, schools, states, stimulus