Update to my graph on Federal Employment...See what those people were hired to do during the recession. Surprising results...

I did not want to appear flippant in my last post on Federal Employment suggesting that additional Federal employees added to the Federal payroll were "Zero Marginal Product" employees. 

Using Census data I found the general categories of  employment for Federal employees and the change in employment from December 2007 (start of recession) to March 2010 (the latest data available).  These numbers are for FULL-TIME employees. There are substantial numbers of part-time workers but I choose to leave those out for now.

In the far right column I calculated the change in employment for each category.  I put an asterisk next to the numbers that stuck out from the rest.

Observation: "Health and Hospitals" added a combined 43,000+ jobs and "National Defense/International Relations" added 72,000+.  Together these two categories account for 115,000 full-time positions, or 62% (est.) of the total jobs "created" in the Federal Govt during this time span. Were these areas in such deficit that they needed this type of "pumping up"?  I honestly don't know.

The relatively large number of new Federal "Police" is curious to me. I am no conspiracy theorist, so don't go there, please. 

How about your observations.  What do you see?