State governments employ millions of people in a variety of roles.
The U.S. Census has data on state and local government employment. I used the 2007 State Government data to compile the information here. In 2007 state governments had 4,306,623 full time equivalent (FTE) employees. FTE employees is a combination of full time and part time.
Here is the list of the full time equivalent employees by function for all states combined :
| Full-time equivalent Employment | |
| Financial Administration | 172,684 |
| Other Government Administration | 56,382 |
| Judicial and Legal | 173,021 |
| Police Protection Total | 106,595 |
| --Police Officers Only | 67,159 |
| --Other Police Employees | 39,436 |
| Corrections | 470,464 |
| Highways | 236,758 |
| Air Transportation | 3,330 |
| Water Transport and Terminals | 4,968 |
| Public Welfare | 235,305 |
| Health | 183,275 |
| Hospitals | 417,113 |
| Social Insurance Administration | 79,165 |
| Solid Waste Management | 1,928 |
| Sewerage | 1,748 |
| Parks and Recreation | 34,768 |
| Natural Resources | 145,114 |
| Water Supply | 704 |
| Electric Power | 4,040 |
| Transit | 33,079 |
| Education Total | 1,740,222 |
| Elementary & Secondary Education Total | 52,143 |
| --Elem & Sec Instructional | 39,139 |
| --Elem & Sec Other | 13,004 |
| Higher Education Total | 1,596,652 |
| --Higher Ed Instructional | 522,198 |
| --Higher Ed Other | 1,074,454 |
| Other Education | 91,427 |
| Libraries | 601 |
| State Liquor Stores | 7,813 |
| All Other and Unallocable | 197,546 |
Here's how the major functional groups look as far as percent of total employment :
You can see that higher education and education in general is the largest segment of state government employment. The next largest area of employment is corrections (prisons/jails) and then the third highest is hospitals.
Posts
