Private vs Public Employment

The US federal government has 15 million employees. The federal budget is over $4 trillion a year.  State and local budgets total over $3 trillion a year. So, $7 trillion of our $20 trillion GDP goes to government spending. That’s 35% and it needs to be reduced. If we are able to return manufacturing to the US, the private sector can pick up the slack.

I got to see, first hand, the end of private sector hiring and the beginning of public sector hiring from 2008 to 2016. I was handling recruiting for one of my electronics manufacturing customers.

One of my chores starting in 2000 was to represent this company at Veteran Career Fairs to satisfy a requirement in that company’s Affirmative Action Plan. These career fairs were conducted by the Georgia Department of Labor.  I attended these 1-day career fairs every other month.

From 2000 to 2008, the private sector company attendance was high. There were also a number of booths from government agencies. These were the George W. Bush years and from 2001 on we were involved in Middle East wars.

After the 2008 Meltdown, the private sector companies stopped attending the career fairs and the majority of booths were dedicated to recruiting candidates for government jobs. These were the Obama years and government jobs were the only jobs available.

I never really hired any of the candidates I met at this career fair, but I had to go to fulfill the requirements in the Affirmative Action Plan.  I never found this to be useful. I did find candidates to hire from posting boards.

My job postings were short and focused and included what they would be doing and what tools they would use. I often used tests and technical panels to hire engineers and technicians. I only hired the best qualified and found that this group included a cross-section of our population anyhow. The Affirmative Action Plans were totally unnecessary.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader