More from the Economic Policy Institute about the damaging effects of mass public layoffs.
The current recovery is the only one that has seen public-sector losses over its first 31 months.
If public-sector employment had grown since June 2009 by the average amount it grew in the three previous recoveries (2.8 percent) instead of shrinking by 2.5 percent, there would be 1.2 million more public-sector jobs in the U.S. economy today. In addition, these extra public-sector jobs would have helped preserve about 500,000 private-sector jobs.
Read: Public-sector job losses: An unprecedented drag on the recovery | Economic Policy Institute.