“Public Service is a noble calling and we need men and women of character to believe that they can make a difference in their communities, in their states and in their country.”

– President George H.W. Bush –

The Covid-19 public health crisis produced a devastating cascade of adverse effects on virtually all aspects of American life, most notably the national economy.  Absent a cohesive federal plan, the burden of testing, treatment, tracing and other pandemic-related tasks, and their unanticipated crippling cost, fell upon states and local governments. Unprecedented measures imposed to contain and control the virus ranging from business closures to wholesale community lockdowns resulted in an abrupt decline in government revenues. States and local governments whose economic vitality depend heavily on tourism, entertainment and robust retail sales were particularly hard hit.

To cope with increased costs and fear of plummeting revenues, many government agencies invoked traditional strategies. Pertaining to human resources, these include reduced hours, furloughs, hiring freezes, and layoffs. By February 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that state and local governments cut 1.3 million jobs, of which approximately half at the local level were in education.  By comparison, 585,000 public sector jobs were lost between 2008 and 2013 due to the Great Recession. Each job loss brings a story of personal hardship, but it is also important to note its impact on the national economy. In the aggregate public employees comprise about 13% of the American workforce and collective state and local government revenues represent 9% of the GDP. The harmful consequences of downturns in government revenues and employment are compounded by the fact that government is slower to be impacted but also slower to recover than the private sector.

The production and administration of Covid-19 vaccines is already resulting in stunning progress toward abating the ravages of the virus. While it is among the greatest of our reasons for hope and optimism about the future of our health and welfare, there are additional reasons to expect that the job outlook for government is encouraging.  Chief among them is the axiom that past performance is often a predictor of future performance. According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics 2016 report, government employment, long considered the gold standard of stability, experienced higher than average annual growth of 2.2% over the previous 100 years. This period encompasses the 1918 Pandemic, Great Depression, 911, and the 2008 Great Recession.

The precipitous drop in government employment beginning in March 2020 seems disproportionate to the severity of revenue losses and there is some evidence that it occurred in an abundance of caution and with the battle-scarred experiences of The Great Recession still fresh.  Social distancing requirements and generous unemployment benefits to mitigate the suffering may also help explain the extent of job losses.