Also interesting: For the first time since 2008, the public sector will add jobs in 2014.  State and local governments started adding a few jobs last year, but austerity has been ongoing at the Federal level.  According to the WSJ The Federal Government Now Employs the Fewest People Since 1966

Not since July 1966 has the federal government’s workforce been so small. … But that’s only the raw numbers! As a share of the total workforce … data going back to 1939 would show no point where the federal government’s share of employment was so low.

In the last 75 years (when the BLS started tracking the data), the public sector (non-military) shed jobs in 12 years. Three of those years were at the end of WWII, two in the early ’80s, and the last five consecutive years (unprecedented streak since the Great Depression).