The U.S. Census Bureau today released statistics from the 2014 Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll, which provides a comprehensive look at the number of state and local government civilian employees and their gross payrolls. The survey is the only data source that specifies employment by government function for state and local governments; some of these functions include education, police protection, hospitals, corrections and natural resources.

In March 2014, there were 19.3 million state and local government employees in the U.S (including part-time employees), up 168,817 or 0.9 percent from the previous year. The number of state government employees increased 1.2 percent since 2013 to 5.3 million, while the number of local government employees increased 0.8 percent to 13.9 million in the same time period.

Other highlights:

• Higher education makes up the largest category of employment for state governments at 49.1 percent of total employees, while elementary and secondary education comprises the largest category for local governments at 54.8 percent.
• Gross payroll for state and local government employees was $73.2 billion in March 2014, an increase of $1.8 billion or 2.5 percent from 2013.
• State government payroll increased 3.2 percent to $21.2 billion from 2013, while local governments increased 2.2 percent to $52.1 billion.

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Data from the Annual Survey of Public Employment & Payroll and past years are available at //www.census.gov/govs/apes/. The 2013 and 2014 data are from sample surveys and are subject to sampling variability. These data are also subject to response and processing errors, as well as errors in item nonresponse. For more information on data limitations, definitions and methodology, see //www.census.gov/govs/apes/how_data_collected.html.