Local governments across the United States have entered a hiring freeze period

Local governments across the United States have entered a hiring freeze period. The Wall Street Journal reported that cities across the United States are beginning to recruit new teachers, firefighters and police officers. At the end of the recession...

The Wall Street Journal reported that cities across the United States are starting to recruit new teachers, firefighters and police officers. Four years after the recession ended, the long and sharp decline in local government employment appears to have reversed.

>The Massachusetts Municipal Police Academy is operating at full capacity as communities train new police officers. Meanwhile, Minneapolis recently hired more than 20 new firefighters, ending a five-year hiring freeze. Nevada's Clark County school district, which includes Las Vegas, will hire 700 new teachers this year, its first major hiring in five years.

Monthly employment data released by the U.S. Labor Department showed that local governments added new employees in seven of the past eight months, the longest streak in five years. So far this year, seasonally adjusted local government employment has increased by 46,000. By June, local government employment stood at 14.08 million, the highest level in more than a year and a half but still well below the peak of 14.61 million in mid-2008. The number of local government employees accounts for 65% of the total number of government employees.

In previous economic recoveries, government agencies as a whole began adding staff earlier. Even now, federal agencies and state governments are cutting jobs as budgets are slashed and the appropriate size of the public sector workforce is debated.

From the perspective of local governments, increased tax revenue, some communities voting to pass tax increases, and the overall recovery of the U.S. economy are driving local governments to recruit new employees.

Westview High School Principal Mike Chamberlain said the situation has improved. He will hire five new teachers. This school is located in the Beaverton School District near Portland, Oregon. The district plans to add 150 teachers for the next school year. Since 2010, 17% of teachers and other qualified teaching staff have been laid off. Local governments can often get more public support for hiring because they have close relationships with taxpayers through schools, parks and police. But further increases in local government hiring may face many headwinds, as some municipalities have unresolved fiscal challenges.

Consider Chicago, which recently laid off 2,100 teachers and staff as its school district grapples with an estimated $8 billion shortfall in its pension system. Cities and municipalities also face rising employee health care costs and federal spending cuts.

While some municipalities have seen a rebound in property tax revenue, driven by the overall U.S. economy, this is not a universal phenomenon and is at risk if the economy weakens. It's unclear whether municipalities will repeat the boom-and-bust cycle that led them to expand their staffs as tax revenues rose before the recession and then slash their staff as tax revenues fell and residents resisted further tax increases.

Joseph Seneca, a professor of economics and public policy at Rutgers University, said these are very painful decisions and it remains to be seen whether they will serve as lasting lessons.

Phoenix has no intention of repeating this cycle. Over the past three years, the number of full-time employees in the nation's sixth-largest city of nearly 1.5 million people has fallen 6.7%. In recent weeks, the city has hired its first new police officer since 2009, but Chief Executive David Cavazos expects municipal employment to continue falling even as property tax revenue rebounds. He implemented a series of cost-saving measures, such as having citizens do arrest bookings to save police manpower and requiring trash and recycling to be done on the same day. These measures have brought the city's ratio of municipal employees per resident to a 40-year low.

> Innovation, efficiency and doing better with less manpower are the future trends for national, state and local governments, Cavazos said.