Ups And Downs In State And Local Unemployment [Infographic]

As states scramble to balance their budgets many state employees have found themselves on the chopping block. As the latest jobs report showed last week, the number of workers on government payrolls shrank 34,000 in September, compared to a gain of about 137,000 positions in the private sector.

The drop in state and local employment is attributable to shortfalls in tax revenues that began shrinking at the end of the last economic expansion in 2007, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The number of government jobs has declined by about 500,000 since the beginning of 2010, just as private employers began ramping up hiring.