Newly-released data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows nearly 150,000 Iowans were employed by state or local governments last year. Nearly 42,000 people were working full-time for the State of Iowa in the spring of 2010 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The payroll for those employees was more than $223.5-million. More than twice as many Iowans, though, were working in local governments — for cities, counties or schools. Nearly 108,000 Iowans were employed full-time by some sort of local government entity in 2010 and the payroll for those local government workers toppped $414-million.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, most states saw a decline in the number of public-sector workers from 2009 to 2010 and Iowa was no different, although the decline here was small. State government shed about 1,200 full-time jobs from 2009 to 2010, while local governments in Iowa laid off or eliminated nearly 1,000 full-timers.
The U.S. Census Bureau released this data today and it shows Rhode Island saw the largest decline in public sector workers, with a drop of 7.7% in state and local government employees from 2009 to 2010.
North Dakota recorded the biggest increase, hiring 7.5% more government workers in 2010 than the year before.