The N.C. Employment Security Commission has released its latest report on county-by-county unemployment figures, and the ESC once again focuses on the loss of government jobs:
RALEIGH — Unemployment rates decreased in 48 of North Carolina’s 100 counties in July. Rates increased in 39 counties and remained the same in 13.
Not seasonally adjusted, government sector job loss offset small private sector gains. State and local government educational services were mostly affected.
“All metropolitan areas across North Carolina experienced a loss in government employment, mainly in educational services,” said ESC Chairman Lynn R. Holmes. “The goal of Gov. Perdue, the ESC and our workforce development partners, is to grow jobs and put people back to work.”
Read the first three paragraphs of this press release, and you’re left with the impression that the government sector — especially “educational services” — is shedding jobs, more jobs than the private sector can replace.
Click the link below for a different side of the story.
A closer look at the data leads to a different conclusion.
Columns in the chart above (click the chart twice to see the numbers more clearly) — compiled from Employment Security Commission data — show the year, government sector employment in June (expressed in thousands of jobs), government sector employment in July, jobs “lost” between June and July (move the decimal point over two places to the right to get the percentage loss), government sector employment in December, local government educational services employment in June, local government educational services employment in July, jobs “lost” between June and July, and local government educational services employment in December.
Here’s the point: Dating back at least to 2000, and there’s no reason to suspect the pattern is any different in prior years, North Carolina’s government sector always “loses” tens of thousands of jobs from June to July, most of them in educational services. On a percentage basis, the “losses” this year are the second-highest recorded since 2000. But the largest losses — by percentage — were in 2010. Does anyone remember an outcry about thousands of unemployed government workers and teachers roaming the streets last summer? Of course not.
The numbers also show that the government sector job totals climb from their July valley every year; since 2000, the number of government sector and local government educational services jobs recorded in December always has been higher than the number recorded in June. In other words, any jobs “lost” from June to July are more than replaced by the end of the calendar year.
Don’t believe the spin about the new Republican budget leading to thousands of lost jobs, at least not those jobs that North Carolina “loses” for one or two months every summer.
