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Private sector vs. public sector

Where are the jobs? Does the public sector really put many people to work?
Private sector vs. public sector
Private sector vs. public sector

Where are the jobs? Does the public sector really put many people to work? Plenty of Republicans like to say the answer is no, and they say the private sector is the only place people get put to work.

But The Economist wanted to know what the reality is, so they did some research and found some facts and put together this handy dandy graphic. On it the top ten biggest employers on the whole entire planet are ranked. And (not really a) surprise!! Seven of ten are government-run entities and only three are private sector businesses. The Economist blog post goes on to tell us:

... governments employ a lot of people: in our chart of the ten biggest global employers, below, seven are government-run. America's defence department had 3.2m people on its payroll last year, equivalent to 1% of the country's population. China, the world's most populous nation and a big military spender, employs 2.3m people in its armed forces. And the number of people working for the National Health Service in England is equivalent to over 2.5% of the country's population. The three private companies are Walmart, McDonald's and Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, a subsidiary of which is Foxconn, a secretive electronics manufacturer.

This is of course not to suggest that more people work, as a whole, in the public sector than in the private sector. But it's interesting to see just how many million people do work for these seven enormous public-run entities.