The following image explains how government jobs temporarily kept the economy from falling apart and the unemployment rate low this year.
Government jobs have been on fire the entire year.
The total job gains so far in 2023 is 2.552 million. Government jobs account for 636,000 of them!
Government employment covers only civilian employees; military personnel are excluded. Employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency also are excluded. Postal Services are included.
Annual Change in Gov’t Jobs
636,000 / 2.552 million is 24.92 percent of all jobs gains this year.
Chart Notes
- When government jobs account for more than 10 percent of all jobs, the economy is nearing recession.
- The last time we saw government jobs account for 25 percent of the total was right before the Great Recession
- Headed into the Covid recession, government jobs were 10.82 percent of the total.
- Headed into the 2001 recession, we had two years of government percentages at 14.49 percent and 13.62 percent.
- To avoid weird looking negative percentages in years where nonfarm payrolls declined I set the numbers to zero.
- The green highlights are years when government hobs declined but overall payrolls increased.
Surging government jobs is sure to raise questions about the Inflation Reduction act authoring $80 billion for IRS reforms including IRS agents, but most of these gains are at the state level.
Of the 636,000 increase in government jobs, only 79,000 were at the federal level, with exclusions as noted above.
BLS Jobs Report Stronger than ADP, Fueled in Part by End of UAW Strike
On Friday, I reported BLS Jobs Report Stronger than ADP, Fueled in Part by End of UAW Strike
In retrospect, a far better headline would read, “… fueled in part by a stunning increase in government jobs for the entire year.”
In case you missed it, please see How Much Did the Huge 412,000 Birth-Death Adjustment Impact October’s Job Report?
How the BLS calculates jobs created in the birth and death of businesses is an amazing exercise in and of itself.
If You Lose a Job, It’s Getting Harder to Find a New One
Finally, If You Lose a Job, It’s Getting Harder to Find a New One
Correction
I revised the lead sentence to “The following image explains how government jobs temporarily kept the economy from falling apart and the unemployment rate low this year.”
The economy certainly isn’t “humming” as I originally typed.
The average salary for the 19,500 FDA employees is $133,236.
link to federalpay.org
The much bigger issue that comes out of the jobs data is that most job creation is taking place in a few private sectors, mainly health care, social assistance, hospitality, and home services. Employers in these sectors can’t find enough reasonably skilled and motivated workers. With the population aging rapidly, the pool of potential workers is shrinking, and the demand in those sectors is going to increase ever faster. Politically, that’s something the white baby boomers stumbling toward the sunset over the next 20 years should worry about.
and likely 50% GDP…How’s that Keynesian econ working out for everyone?
– The total job gains so far in 2023 is 2.552 million. Government jobs account for 636,000 of them!
So what you’re implying here, is that 25% of ALL JOBS Created in 2023 (so far) are Government Jobs. I don’t care that they are Federal, State, City, Town, or an Island Job. If they fall under Government for any reason, then that money they make, is being yanked directly out of existence.
In other words, Nothing is being Produced of Value. Any Job of Value is in, and always should be in, the Private Sector Exclusively, or the money goes poof! It is insane, for any Country to even consider the possibility of survival in the Real World, in doing such a thing.
Why on Earth are Employees of these Agencies: CIA, NSA, NIMA, and the DIA, NOT Underneath the areas that they fall under? Not as Agencies, with Management Personnel with Offices, and full staffs, but JUST THE WORKERS under other leaders that do such activities and are already getting paid for such?
Don’t even get me started on the Postal Services. They have LOST Money over and over, but get raises, new hires, new facilities etc. WTF? Let them go for crying out loud!!
Or to look at another aspect, the taxes that the 1.9 non-government wage earners pay fails to cover the wages for all the government jobs.Yea Biden!
This is also known as pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps.
It doesn’t work.
Government is parasitic by it’s funding requirements thus keep Government employment small and use the private sector to accomplish the tasks-Drain the DC Swamp
Calm down. As Mish points out, it’s the local and the state governments doing the hiring.
In my state, almost all of the hiring is due to Federal funding (the local city government just doled out $40M of the “Inflation Reduction Act” to several agencies that rely almost exclusively on government funding for their employees…
So I just helped pay for Government Employees, to do work in your State, that I don’t agree with, and didn’t ask for?
These jobs are not needed right now, and may never be needed, all at once like that. In fact many of them should probably be data collection (I.e. Private) type jobs that can be hired as needed through Private Industry Agencies, but I digress…
How does this help Our Country again?
Difference being?
Mike Johnson will hit the brakes on gov jobs. In construction of multi units 5+ will
slow down. The healthcare industry, Starbucks and MickyD harms people. They are too expensive. They will be cut. The radical left in the high tech, the pro/anti Palestinian state, hate each other so much they can’t work together. They are fighting in the cafeteria. To preempt $3T maturity HR will cut head count.
MBS and the Emir of Qatar will build The Biden/Modi silk road from India to Gaza port and Europe. It’s already operational with trucks to bypass Yemen.
How many of those government jobs are diversity hires?
I know three University Presidents who are token quota affirmative action bimbo diversity hires.
Outlays increasing faster than tax revenue with every additional government job. What could go wrong?
Nobody in government works. People who have nothing of value to offer society seek do nothing government slots. They twiddle their thumbs and scratch their nose all day. If they had any integrity they would flip burgers or clean toilets for a living. FJB I’m talking to you.
Don’t believe anything you read and only one-half (at most) of what you see and you will be fine.
Everbidey be workin’ fo dat gubment CHEESE, baby!
Is that surprising? It’s mostly local and state governments that hire, and this part of general government is always pro-cyclical when it follows balanced budget rules. It’s the same local and state government budget behavior we see all over the world.
Wait a minute. Are these the same employment statistics that so many here complain as being manipulated? But now they are correct?
This happens all the time in the comments section here. If the stats back up your pre-conceived notions, they must be correct. But if they are counter to your pre-conceived notions, then they are manipulated.
Gotta love it.
Hilarious.
Makes no sense, with all the job creating tax cuts of the last 40 years between Reagan, Bush and Trump, how is this even possible?!?
Well worth the $33 trillion debt the middle class is expected to pay for.
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Is this another recession call I can add to the tally? Or just standard issue grumbling?
I rate this a refined mixture of both, while it has no intrinsic value for trading stocks, it’s definitely depressing, which has to count for….something.
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I just hope this new workforce is fully vaccinated and quadruple boosted!
Oh yes, their all snortin’ bleach…at Trump rallies!
Bidenomics in its full glory. Juice the numbers or democracy fails guys.
I can’t help but snicker when a president’s administration averts a recession and the GOP complains.
It just has a bad look to it, is that going to be the GOP platform in 2024?
“Vote for us and we’ll allow a recession!”
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No. By mid 2024, you probably will have a mother of all recessions because various administrations have been ‘averting’ them for over a decade.
Oh boy! More useless government “make work” funded by government deficits. It’s all rainbow and sunshine from here!
I agree, why aren’t the trillions of $$ in “Job creating tax cuts that pay for themselves” working?!?