Recession Hitting Private Jobs the Hardest
In this study from a few months ago, I found that over the last decade the private sector lost 13,000 jobs while government added 3,400 jobs. Now that a few more months have passed, I thought it would be a good time to update the data. Also, the data for November 2009 was just released today by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
As shown in the accompanying chart (click “continue reading” to view chart), Maine’s private sector has now lost 20,200 jobs over the last decade (from November 2000 to November 2009). Maine’s government employment, while down, is still 300 jobs higher than a decade ago.
Since the recession begun in January 2008, the private sector has shed 29,700 jobs while government jobs have dropped by 3,500. What is really interesting about this is that the decline in government jobs has followed the decline in private sector jobs. This is not “government reform” driving the drop in government jobs–its the lack of revenue caused by a rapidly shrinking private sector.
