Government Jobs in Tennessee Feel the Wrath

Ever since the Bill Haslam took office as Governor for the state of Tennessee during the month of January in 2011, over one thousand state employees have been cut, which means a whole lot of layoffs have taken place. Only a few of these employees have had the opportunity to be placed in new positions, which means that hundreds of people could still be out of work after receiving the ax. Haslam’s administration is working on trying to save while also improving the services provided by the government but this means that cuts had to be made. This means that over 2,000 jobs have been cut and eliminated.

A lot of the jobs that have been cut were made with some sort of promise of helping the employees who have received the ax to find work in other areas of the state government. However, even though the promise was given, it does not seem as though the state actually went through with that. According to the Department of Human Resources, only about 40 of those employees have been reassigned to other areas. It is quite obvious that the plan that the governor has is not yet completed and still has a long way to go.

After having been in office for over a year, for about 16 months, it is obvious that Haslam is eager to reorganize the government in the state. He wants to set a budget and stick to it as a way of helping the state to save money while still operating in an efficient manner. Haslam has also created a new law which would make it a lot simpler for managers to hire or fire workers, as well as promote workers who deserve a promotion. Haslam has the idea of tightening up management and this is a trend that is becoming quite common in the other areas. Many of the different cities in Tennessee are, however, suffering from these changes as cuts are being made to payrolls which mean that job growth is not doing as well as many in the state of Tennessee had hoped. It also means that the recovery process after the great recession will take longer than expected.

In 2008, the government payroll was at 50,000 and now, in 2012, it is less than 44,000. Even though some have warned Haslam about making so many cuts, he is still following through with his own idea of cutting off more fat, thus resulting in more positions eliminated. Many of these workers have had to go into other work, outside of government employment, simply because they have not been able to find a position to fill after having been laid off from their original government position.