In any year, most governments lose about 5% of their staff through retirement, injury, fired or they just quit. If every employee worked 33 years, none were ever hurt, quit or got fired, the yearly loss would be 3% on average. Another issue is most governmental employers have 3-5% of their positions vacant. What typically happens is that they just stop hiring and eliminate or freeze vacant positions. That gets them between a 6% and 10% reduction without handing out a single pink slip. Some of the local governments have seen this coming and have had hiring freezes in effect for months. There might be a few pink slips given out here and there, the unions and media will make a big fuss but it will look worse on paper than it really is, I don’t think the local economy will feel the impact too much.
