I’ve been running some numbers today to supplement the background data on North Carolina’s fiscal position that I summarized in my most recent Daily Journal column. One area of interest is public employment.
Remembering that North Carolina governments had traditionally employed a higher percentage of their residents than the average state did, I went to the Census Bureau site to see what the latest data revealed. It’s still true. In doing this comparison, you have to add state and local positions together and convert part-time to full-time equivalency. Otherwise, differences among the states in policies and procedures (who pays the public schoolteachers, how is the workload distributed, etc.) will render a ranking meaningless.
So here’s what the 2007 data show. FTE positions in North Carolina state and local governments add up to about 6 percent of the state’s population. The national average is 5.5 percent. Among neighboring states, NC has the largest government workforce, followed by South Carolina (5.8 percent), Virginia (5.7 percent), Georgia (5.5 percent), and Tennessee (5.3 percent).
If North Carolina matched the national average in public employment, that would translate to about 48,000 fewer state and local FTE positions.
