By Alex Harring
“Government at the state and local levels did much of the hiring in June,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. That helped “the total payrolls number to top expectations.”
Looking under the hood, those increases were concentrated outside of Washington, D.C.
State government payrolls grew by 47,000, while local governments added 33,000 jobs. The bulk of those new jobs on both levels were in education, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.
On the other hand, the federal government payroll shrunk by 7,000 jobs in the month. That’s unsurprising given the continued focus on government efficiency initiatives under President Donald Trump.
To be sure, Bankrate’s Hamrick warned that it would be hard for state and local governments to sustain such strong growth.