State, Local Governments Struggling for Workers

State and local governments across the country are having difficulty finding and keeping employees despite an influx of funds given in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Politico reports.

ZipRecruiter found, in an analysis of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that while the private sector has brought back 93% of jobs lost since February 2020, the public sector has only gained 53% of jobs lost during that time. In February 2020 there were 22.8 million workers in federal, state, and local governments while in February 2022 there were 22.2 million workers in those areas. State and local governments alone gained 24,000 jobs in February of this year, well below the more than 650,000 added in the private sector at that time.

Julia Pollak, the chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told the news outlet there remain "many things that we still need to do to recover from the pandemic — and they are largely in the hands of the public sector, because the private sector has almost fully recovered."

She added that this is "despite trillions, with a 't,' that the government spent to provide relief during COVID."

Pollak noted, "It is public-sector employment that is now a drag on the economy and holding back this recovery."

Mike Maciag, a research officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts, told Politico: "Really across the board, many governments are often facing intense competition for workers. Slower [public-sector] wage growth is playing a major role in hindering efforts by a lot of governments to fill openings and retain workers."

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