2007 Final Numbers In - Local Government Swells
January 31st, 2008Here’s the December 2007 Nevada Economy In Brief.
Highlights:
- At the beginning of the year, Government represented 12.02% of Nevada’s jobs.
- Although it is just a small portion of overall jobs, it provided 69% of the new jobs created during 2007.
- Nevada added 5,800 government jobs and 2,600 private-sector jobs during 2007.
- Statewide, government jobs paid the highest average wages, beating construction and mining, high tech and medicine.
These numbers are on page 3 of the Economy In Brief. Subsequent pages break out individual cities and counties. Most of the government growth was local government employees in the Las Vegas metropolitan statistical area.
February 1st, 2008 at 3:36 am
I am disappointed.
We all need to work for the government and only 12% of the workforce is just not enough.
I will talk to the Las Vegas Sun and Ralston to see if they can address this problem. The obvious answer to this underfunding of government jobs is to increase taxes and to spend all the rainy day money. It rained yesterday.
February 1st, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Gosh, Jim, we all already work for the government for almost half the year to pay our taxes and fees. We just don’t get the higher pay and great benefits.
Kind of makes me feel like a serf under the sheriff of Nottingham this time of year (income taxes), and I don’t see any Robin Hoods on the horizon.
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:01 am
Just add this number to the over 25 million others on government payrolls around the country and even I lowly taxpayer like me can see trouble coming!
February 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 am
1 government employee is one employee, 2 government employees are ½ an employee and 3 government employees are no employee at all. After the first employee, all levels of government workers tend to gravitate to the “meeting mode”. This is a thought sharing process whereby an entire day can be spent by an entire department, including the pizza delivery boy, discussing the need to hire an outside consulting firm for almost everything. If the consulting firm does not give the group a satisfactory answer to the problem, such as increasing their home days or decreasing their work load, they can do what Jacob Snow does and that is to call for another outside firm to study the study. What the hell, it is only taxpayer money, right? The “meeting mode” has been found to be an invaluable tool in all levels of government as it allows those of very marginable ability to command exceedingly generous salaries, perks and retirement benefits. Of course there will be government employees that vehemently disagree with this assessment. My response would be that when you are already working at capacity anything above that could seem impossible. If you are able to be more productive then do so. Let’s try to do away with 10 people doing the work of one.
February 3rd, 2008 at 7:50 am
On the other hand, people need to accept the fact that they keep reelecting the same people to councils and commissions and expecting a different outcome. Insanity. Special intrest groups give the incumbents money for a reason and purpose. Often times their purpose and reason is not congruent with the electors.
Too, people keep asking government to do more and more things for them. Hiring more employees is in response to a demand.
Stop reelecting; stop calling on the government for help; vote smart.