Government payroll employment
Number of jobs on government payrolls in the month, seasonally adjusted, from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The supersector covers federal, state and local government, including public schools, public hospitals and the Postal Service; active-duty military personnel are excluded.
One of the eleven CES supersectors that make up nonfarm_payroll_employment. Counts jobs on nonfarm payrolls, not people: someone with two jobs counts twice. It covers full-time and part-time employees paid for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th of the month, and excludes the self-employed, farm workers, private household workers and unpaid family workers.
Key facts
- Government payroll employment in the United States was 23,327,000 jobs in September 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- California had the highest government payroll employment of 51 states in August 2026, at 2,673,200 jobs, and Vermont the lowest, at 56,300 jobs. Source: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- Published for 52 places, with figures from January 1939 to September 2026.
Rankings
US states by government payroll employment, August 2026
Places with data
Countries
Regions and states
- California
- Texas
- Florida
- New York
- Pennsylvania
- Illinois
- Ohio
- Georgia
- North Carolina
- Michigan
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Minnesota
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- New Mexico
Use this data in your AI agent
Invokely serves this figure to AI assistants through MCP and to code through a REST API, with the source and citation attached. Ask your assistant:
Which places have the highest government payroll employment? Use official data and cite it.
rank_places {"indicator":"payroll_employment_government","level":"region","within":"United States"}
GET https://invokely.ai/api/v1/rank?indicator=payroll_employment_government&level=region&within=United%20States