Did government grow in Florida?
May 7, 2012
The following article was published in The Florida Current on May 7, 2012:
Did Government Grow in Florida?
An story in the Jacksonville Business Journal notes that Florida’s government workforce saw one of the largest increases in the number of government employees over the last decade, increasing by nearly 60,000 and ranking it fourth among states.
However, the analysis by the Business Journals parent site paints an incomplete picture of the changes in Florida’s workforce. Government employment grew by 5.78 percent, according to the analysis, but overall employment grew by 11.2 percent during the same period, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which is also the source cited by Business Journals.
In other words, government’s share of the overall workforce shrank in Florida, because the private sector grew more quickly.
The increase is largely a product of population growth, and occured at the federal and local levels. The state government workforce has shrunk over the last decade, and is now the smallest and the cheapest in the country on a per-capita basis.
Find this article here: http://www.thefloridacurrent.com/article.cfm?id=27613979