Public-sector employment below pre-recession levels.

• Position: News & Numbers

Private-sector employment has shown relatively strong growth of late, but state and local government employment remains lower than the levels reported at the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, according to a recent Rockefeller Institute of Government data alert. According to the institute's analysis, total non-farm employment has risen by 1.4 percent, or 2 million jobs, since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, with private-sector employment growing by 2.1 percent (2.4 million jobs). While private-sector employment has improved substantially, state and local government employment remains below pre-recession levels: Employment is down by 1.1 percent (-54,000 jobs) for state government and by 2.3 percent (-340,000 jobs) for local government.

State and local government employment often lags in starting to show the effects of a recession, so making sense of the data includes examining changes compared to the recession's peak as well as its start. Private-sector employment began declining in February 2008, almost immediately after the start of the recession. State and local government employment continued growing for several months after the start of the recession and reached peak levels in August 2008. Cuts have been large and prolonged since then.

"State and local government employment is far weaker seven years after the start of the Great Recession than it was seven years after the start of any of the previous four recessions," according to the report. "On average, state and local...