Public employee unions complained loudly when New York’s state government workforce shrank during the coronavirus pandemic, using that decrease as pretext to press Governor Hochul and state lawmakers for more hiring and costly giveaways to benefit their members. But the latest data show nearly every state agency has more employees than it did a year ago, and that by at least one key measure, the state workforce is larger than it was before COVID.

New York as of early October had 223,760 employees (measured on a full-time equivalent basis) spread across the executive, judicial and legislative branches (not including public authorities such as the MTA). That’s up 4 percent from 216,174 a year prior. The increase was spread across virtually all of state government: headcounts at some of the largest agencies surged as much as 14 percent, as was the case at the Office of Information Technology Services (ITS). Every state agency, with the exception of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), had more employees in October 2024 than in October 2023.

The growth is even more pronounced when DOCCS (where facilities have been closing due to declining inmate population) and the SUNY and CUNY public university systems (where enrollment and employment has fluctuated) are excluded. Outside those three, state government has hiked employment by 5.6 percent in a year.

What’s more, by the same analysis, the number of state employees (122,240) is higher than it was five years prior, in Q3 2019 (120,723). This includes the judiciary, whose payroll grew 2.6 percent over the period, and the Legislature, where headcount ticked down 6.1 percent.

Source: Office of the State Comptroller, author’s calculations

These data are available thanks to an excellent new dashboard created by the Office of the State Comptroller, providing quarterly headcount and employment figures going back a decade for each agency.

The headcount dipped in early 2020 as the state curbed hiring to replace departing employees. Massive upheaval occurred in the labor market and by late 2021 job openings across the state economy outnumbered job seekers to the greatest extent on record.

Source: BLS JOLTS via NYS Dept. of Labor

Amid that tight labor market, state agencies had a tougher time recruiting and retaining workers. These challenges were hardly unique to New York or the public sector. But the state’s public employee unions used them to advance baseless claims that reforms to the state pension system a decade prior were to blame, and cajoled Governor Hochul and state lawmakers into changes that will cost taxpayers over $4 billion over coming years.

That’s just the beginning. Unions have indicated that their ultimate goal is the return of New York’s prior practice of allowing public employees to retire with full pensions at age 55, a move that would cost state taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. If the unions are also successful in ending employee contributions toward pensions after ten years on the job, the total cost of these “reforms” together could exceed $100 billion.

To be sure, agencies have unique and dynamic needs, and what could objectively be described as staffing shortages likely persist at some facilities and offices.

All things being equal though, the state workforce as a whole should be getting smaller than it was five years ago, especially as technology makes operations more efficient. Robotic process automation and the shift from paper to electronic filings, among other things, could slash the manpower—and time—needed to perform clerical functions. The state got a glimpse of these potential efficiencies over the past decade as the Thruway and Port Authority moved, albeit slowly, to electronic tolling.

Meanwhile, the state could be inviting more vendors to bid on services now performed by state agencies, allowing apples-to-apples comparisons to see whether outside firms can get taxpayers more for their dollar. Requiring state agencies to publish their performance metrics, as New York City agencies do, would be a good start.

But state lawmakers, most of whom won their last election with backing from public employee unions, haven’t objected as the state headcount has surged.

Both Democrats and Republicans appear more interested in helping the unions collect more dues than in getting New Yorkers a better return on what they pay in state taxes.