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Manufacturing vs Government Employment

This should come as no surprise to anyone, we have been adding Government Employees at a faster rate and now have more Government Employees than Manufacturing Employees.

In 1998 we had 25,000 more manufacturing employees than government employees, now in 2007 that has reversed, 53,000 more government employees than manufacturing and manufacturing jobs have declined by 56,000 while government jobs have increased by 22,000!

That is 22,000 new employees with pensions and medical benefits and they contribute not one dime to the productive economy, they make nothing that can be sold on the Global Economy.

The government never does without, they never tighten their belts. Bad economies merely are slow downs in government employment growth while the private sector living with the government’s failed policies lay off 10,000’s.

That is an awful lot of planners to look over us.

56,000 manufacturing jobs! If we assume they would make ~40K$ a year, that is 224 Billion $ in income!

State employees do pay income tax, but the money they are paid comes from the income tax, so state employee’s incomes are derived from internal to the state of Connecticut, whereas manufacturing incomes largely come from outside the state. Big difference.

Manufacturing jobs bring wealth in to the state whereas government jobs add layers of job killing oversight and re-cycle money already in the state AND consume that money in ways that add nothing to the wealth of the state. A state worker’s output is not saleable, it generates no value that can be transfered, bartered or sold.

We live to serve the state.

I plotted the employment figures Manufacturing vs State and the curve is remarkably linear with the exception of the Rowland years where the parasitic relationship was actually broken. From this graph you could say that rising government jobs destroys private sector jobs. And you would be right, government jobs add to a business’s overhead which make us less competitive.

If you don’t think we are competing against China and the pacific rim every day, you are not thinking.

All this data comes from the US Bureau of Labor, which has great data and a great website for retrieving and analyzing labor data.

Does Government have a place? ABSOLUTELY! Environment, protection of the business environment both commerce and workplace issues are legit. There is a hard economic fact that no amount of feel good bills in our state houses can overcome, state government is paid for by the people and if the people’s incomes are shrinking then government must also.

4 Responses to “Manufacturing vs Government Employment”

1. cttaxpayer Says:
   March 13th, 2007 at 1:39 am

   While I agree that there has been a horrendous decline in the number of manufacturing jobs in Connecticut, that is hardly a unique characteristic. I would expect that you would see the same result in most states due the continuing outsourcing of manufacturing to much lower cost other countries and to ongoing corporate restructuring. Even the most successful and profitable businesses redesign themselves on a recurring basis (although government does not).

   With regard to the growth in government jobs shown in this graph, I believe that most if not all of that growth is due to our two very successful casinos, which are run by Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribes. Under BLS rules, business operations owned by the tribes are classified as government jobs. I believe this extends beyond the casinos themselves - to the other businesses that the tribes own that are off the reservation itself.

   The really interesting graph would be - the number of municipal vs. number of education employee. Overlaid on that graph would be the growth/shrinkage in the number of public school students in the same period.

2. Patrick Henry Says:
   March 13th, 2007 at 1:57 am

   Since I’ve posted I have been reviewing other states for an example of a successful model. And unfortunately you are correct, the decline of manufacturing and the rise of the state employee seems to be the norm in the US.

   I did not know that BLS treats casino workers as government, I would have considered them “leisure”, considering there has been quite a rise in “leisure” workers. I wonder why leisure has grown so much?

   Other states that do not have casinos have graphs very close to Connecticut’s, the ratios and rates of growth seem to hold. Evidently the rise of the state worker has a common cause.

   Regards education, while we know the student/teacher ratio, other support staff numbers are harder to find. The use of teacher’s aides in the classroom is high but I can’t find a report on that. I’ll see what I can research on municipal vs education.

3. Patrick Henry Says:
   March 13th, 2007 at 2:15 am

   Under Leisure and Hospitality is NAICS 7132 Gambling Industries.

4. Patrick Henry Says:
   March 13th, 2007 at 2:48 am

   I have further graphs with numbers broken out by State, Local, Education and Manufacturing.

   I’ll post tomorrow once I’ve had a chance to digest the numbers.
   It appears to be for the most part local government (not including education) growth.

   It would be interesting to see it broken down further between urban and suburban.

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