| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 27, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| ECONOMIC TRENDS
Hiring Woes for States and Cities Governments face a worker drain With no end in sight to the U.S. expansion, unemployment at a 30-year low, and labor force growth slowing, human-resource executives are wondering how they'll staff their businesses in the years ahead. Their future problems pale, however, when compared to the difficulties the public sector may face, according to a recent report by Samuel M. Ehrenhalt of the Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, N.Y. Ehrenhalt's focus is the age profile of civil servants. ''Older workers,'' he notes, ''comprise an extraordinarily large component of government employment.'' Some 44% of government workers were 45 or older in 1998, compared with 30.1% of private-sector workers. What's more, the government labor force appears to be aging much more rapidly. Its 45-to-64-year-old contingent jumped from 36.8% to 41.7% of total government payrolls between 1994 and 1998, whereas the share of private-sector workers of a similar age edged up from a low 25.3% to 27.8% during the same period. The other side of the coin is the relative dearth of workers under 35. Ehrenhalt reports that such young workers represented just 27.6% of government workers in 1998, compared with 43.2% for the private sector. The reasons for the tilt toward older workers in government aren't entirely clear. Federal government payrolls were pared by more than 9% over the past decade, so reduced hiring could help explain the lack of younger workers in that segment. But federal payrolls account for only 13% of government workers. Local government payrolls, which added nearly 2.2 million workers in the 1990s, notes Ehrenhalt, grew as quickly as private-sector employment. What is clear is that retirements will hit state and local governments especially hard in the decade ahead--a period when the number of U.S. workers aged 25 to 34 is projected to shrink by some 3 million. As the competition with the private sector for new workers heats up, so undoubtedly will the pressure to boost government wages. By GENE KORETZ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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RELATED ITEMS Hiring Woes for States and Cities CHART: America's Aging Government Workforce INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online | |||
