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.