In 2015, there were about 564,000 small businesses in Colorado operating above the radar — that is to say, businesses that were registered with the government, and known to the U.S. Small Business Administration. That government agency, however, has a peculiar definition for “small business.” The U.S. Small Business Administration considers your business to be “small” if it has fewer than 500 employees or less than $7 million in annual revenue.
Meanwhile, the same agency reported that in 2015 there were about 440,000 small businesses that had no employees — that were staffed by a single owner. (Plus whatever unpaid help they could wrangle out of their spouses, I presume.) That collection of self-employed individuals with no employees, then, amounts to about 15 percent of Colorado’s total employed workforce of 2.9 million adults.
That’s about the same percent of the workforce employed by “Government,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: about 440,000 workers, here in Colorado.
I’ve been self-employed for most of my life, but I’ve had a few experiences working for the government. I spent two years working in public schools in Juneau, Alaska, and two years working for the U.S. Postal Service, also in Juneau. Plus two years working for the City of Juneau in their parks and recreation department.
In my personal experience, the paychecks were typically bigger and more regular, when working a government job — but the opportunities to be creative, and expansive, were lacking. If I’d been motivated by wealth, I probably could have made a lot more money owning my own business, than working for governments.
For a person concerned mainly about “security,” I would recommend public sector employment.
For a person interested in variety and opportunity… who is willing to take risks and live ‘on the edge’… I would recommend joining the private sector… as a business owner.
Those are two elements of working for a living, that appear to be mutually exclusive. The ability to be creative and take risks, on the one hand, and job security on the other hand.
When the weekly Pagosa Springs SUN reported last week that two key employees — Archuleta County Administrator Bentley Henderson and Archuleta County Attorney Todd Starr — had recently submitted their resignations (effective in August) I got emails from a couple of Daily Post readers, wondering if there was a story behind the story. Maybe a government agency in the middle of a melt-down?
If there is a employee turnover crisis going on in the County Administration Building, I’m certainly not aware of it. My first thought was, “Well, Bentley and Todd probably hope to advance their careers by making a change.” I sent them each an email on Thursday, wondering if they’d like to share their thoughts with our Daily Post readers. Something like this:
HI Todd
I’m going to be writing a short piece about the recent resignations at the County. Do you have time to send us a statement about your decision to ‘move on’?
In particular, maybe you can recount for our Daily Post readers what important matters are on the ‘near horizon’ for your replacement? Maybe three of the most important issues the next attorney will need to take care of?
Or anything else you want to share with our readers…
Let me know… Thanks!
—
Bill Hudson, editor
So far, I’ve not had a response from Mr. Henderson or Mr. Starr.
But their decisions to resign their positions at the County got me thinking about the larger question of employee turnover and led me, eventually, to a research paper about “public v. private employees” written by J. Norman Baldwin, a professor at the University of Alabama. The University of Alabama is a publicly-supported research institution, which thus makes Professor Baldwin a “public employee.”
With that in mind, we can consider his thoughtful 1990 research paper entitled “Public Versus Private Employees: Debunking Stereotypes.”
Most of our Daily Post readers no doubt appreciate the act of debunking stereotypes.
From Professor Baldwin’s research paper:
“This article explores whether common negative stereotypes of public employees are consistent with the descriptive and empirical literature comparing public and private employees. It reviews this literature comparing specifically whether public employees are more lazy, security-seeking, insensitive, inefficient, and incompetent than private employees. Given the ethic crises in government in the 1980s, it also explores whether public employees are less ethical that private employees… Suggestions for future public-private comparative studies of employees are proposed.”
If indeed Professor Baldwin were to discover — looking at empirical evidence — that public employees were more lazy, security-seeking, insensitive, inefficient, and incompetent than private employees, and also less ethical, we would then have to wonder:
Does government employment naturally attract and retain a certain type of applicant?
Or does exposure to the culture of government create a certain type of employee?
But first we ought to find out what Professor Baldwin discovered with his research. The paper is dated 1991, and apparently the 1980s was a period of ethics scandals with regard to government employees. The professor mentions a “quiet crisis” in recruitment and retention of public employees. (I personally have no memory of those scandals, or the resulting crisis. Probably, I was too busy running a struggling business to notice.)
When Professor Baldwin wrote his paper in 1991, “Laws and executive orders aimed at reducing personal favorites, enhancing political neutrality, and preventing arbitrary discrimination” often made it difficult to dismiss public employees. Governments had installed systems of “progressive discipline” and grievance and appeal processes that “protect the innocent along with the incompetent, in subordinate, and unmotivated.”
“Moreover, these procedures can be so time-consuming and unpleasant, they deter discipline.”
Sound familiar?
Read Part Three, tomorrow…
Bill Hudson began sharing his opinions in the Pagosa Daily Post in 2004 and can’t seem to break the habit. He claims that, in Pagosa Springs, opinions are like pickup trucks: everybody has one.