Government Workers are Endangered?

A CNNMONEY.com article laments the fact that even workers for the government are losing their jobs these days.

"Once upon a time, there was job security in a government job.

That's no longer the case. The layoff ax has hit public sector payrolls with force as states wrestle with massive budget shortfalls. Since August 2008, some 231,000 state and local government jobs have disappeared -- 22,000 last month alone," according to federal data.

The majority of the cuts are on the local level, which at 14.4 million workers is nearly three times the size of the state workforce. Plus, unlike at the federal level, most of these cuts come from the ranks of teachers, cops, firefighters and social service workers.

And more pain is coming down the pike. Some 19 states say they plan to implement layoffs to narrow budget gaps, according to a recent survey."

The increasing percentage of workers employed by government has been an increasing drain on the overall economy for years, since the salaries of government workers are generally paid by the taxes of those that work in the private sectors.

Since the payroll of the federal and state governments needs to be dramatically scaled back in order for the economy of this country to recover, headlines such as these suggest that, at least on some levels, the economy may be heading in the right direction.