After Painful Recession-Related Cuts, Cities Adding Jobs Again

"Cities across the U.S. are starting to hire new teachers, firefighters and police officers as a deep and prolonged slide in local-government employment appears to have bottomed out four years after the recession ended," report Mark Peters and Stephanie Banchero. "So far this year, 46,000 new jobs have been created on a seasonally adjusted basis. Local-government employment through June stood at 14.08 million, the highest level in more than a year and a half, though still well below a peak of 14.61 million in mid-2008."

However, assert the authors, some jobs eliminated during the recession won't be coming back. "Innovation and efficiency, doing better with less—that's the trend going forward nationally, state, local," said Phoenix City Manager David Cavazos.

"Moody's Analytics is forecasting a continued rise in hiring," Peters and Banchero add, "with local government adding a total of 90,000 jobs this year and 300,000 jobs in 2014. The firm, however, doesn't expect local-government payrolls to reach their all-time peak until late 2015 at the earliest."