The U.S. added 49,000 government jobs in November, with 32,000 of those being local and 17,000 of those being federal, bringing the total number of government employees to 22,967,000, according to the BLS. The number of total government employees in November is only outdone by one other month, with 22,996,000 people being employed by the government in May 2010 as a result of temporary hiring used to perform the census that year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED).