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Show Public Employee Averages Above Population Increase During the 1970's, state and local employment in Utah grew slightly faster than the state's population. This was shown in the latest analysis of state and local employment in Utah prepared by Utah Foundation, the private research organization. According to the Foundation study, the number of full-time equivalent state and local employees in Utah climbed from 47,539 in 1970 to 67,673 in 1980, an increase of 42-percent during the decade. Utah's total population increased by 38-percent during this same 10-year period. Consequently, the number of state and local employees per 10,000 population rose by 3.2 percent from 449 in 1970 to 463 in 1980. Even though the number of (Continued on Page 8) Public Employee Averages Above Population Increase state and local government employees in Utah grew slightly faster than population, the increase was not as rapid as it was for the nation as a whole. State and local employment per 10,000 population throughout the U. S. rose by 16.2 percent during the 1970-1980 decade. Utah ranked slightly below the U. S. average in the proportion of its population employed by state and local agencies in 1980. State and local employment per 10,000 population totaled 463 in Utah, compared with 588 for the nation. This is reversal of the experience in 1970 when there were 449 state and local employees per 10,000 population in Utah, compared with an average of 420 for the United States. Education accounts for nearly 58-percent of total state and local employment in Utah. Of the 67,673 full-time equivalent state and local employees in Utah, 38,990 were employed in education,. This included 26,184 local school employees, 12,057 employees Iri higher education and 749 other educational employees. Throughout the nation, approximately 48-percent of all state and local employment last year was in the area of education. In analysis of state and local employment by function, the report noted that Utah currently was somewhat above the U. S. average in the ratio of employees for education, libraries and natural resources. Utah, however, is below the national average in the ratio of public employees working in welfare, hospitals, health, correction, police protection, fire protection and most of the other functions of local government. |