Education Jobs Account For Increase In State, Local Government

WASHINGTON – State and local governments employed 307,000 new workers in 1998, 35,000 more workers than the previous year, a new stody indicates.

The increase came despite the fact that 13,000 fewer employees — 70,000 — were hired during the fourth quarter of 1998 than in the third quarter, according to a Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government report.

Education was responsible for about three-fifths of the increase in 1998, said the report, which cautioned that the rise in education employment seen in recent years appears to be slowing.

California, Texas and Florida added the largest numbers of state and local government workers in 1998. Those three states collectively created 100,000 new government jobs, nearly one-third of the increase recorded by all 50 states.