Cities Starting to Hire New Workers
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Cities across the United States are starting to hire new teachers, firefighters and police officers as a deep and prolonged slide in local government employment appears to have bottomed out four years after the recession ended, says the Wall Street Journal.
Monthly jobs data from the Labor Department show local governments, which make up about 65 percent of the overall government workforce, added workers in seven of the past eight months, the longest such streak in five years. So far this year, 46,000 new jobs have been created on a seasonally adjusted basis. Local government employment through June stood at 14.08 million, the highest level in more than a year and a half, though still well below a peak of 14.61 million in mid-2008.
In previous recoveries, the overall government sector started adding jobs much sooner. Even now, federal agencies and state governments continue to shed jobs amid budget cuts and a broader debate over the proper size of public sector workforces.
In local governments, rebounding tax revenue, voter-approved tax hikes in some communities and a recovery in the broader U.S. economy are fueling hiring.
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