Private Sector vs state employment

I work for the State of Louisiana...It's like I'm retired.

I’ve worked in both. The “lazy state worker” is a bad meme. I worked much harder and longer hours working for the state. And there are plenty of brothers-in-law and kids and other people in private industry who are either dumb, lazy or corrupt.

The main difference is pay and stability. Government usually doesn’t have the turnover when the economy is bad, but doesn’t pay as much either. For instance, there were no raises for state workers for 6 years of Jindal and 2 years of JBE.

State work also has more bureaucracy where private business is often arbitrary and up to the whim of one or two people.

I worked for a brief time in State Gov and so did other family members. All left as soon as possible. All agree that you could eliminate 30 to 40 % of the workforce and accomplish the same work if it was run efficiently like a private business.

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Anyone that works for the state department loses all rights to bitch about government spending.

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Private sector, ESOP company 30+ years, will retire much much better than any state worker,,,,MUCH MUCH Better

its an engineering job for CPRA. im young and just trying to figure out my life right now.

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Many state positions work for far less pay than the private sector and can do a lot more work due to budgetary/positional constraints.

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This is laughable if you're talking anything requiring degrees or certs.

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State work: low pay ceiling, shitty bureaucracy, but stable pay, Cadillac health insurance and good retirement.

Private: pay ceiling higher but you only eat what you kill, health care is astronomical if paying on your own, stability fluctuates. If your disciplined retirement can be fine.

State work is a lot of riding out shitty pay to get to 30 years.

Private is hustle and anxiety to get bigger payoffs

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Agree with most of this. Health care isn’t as good since Jindal raided the OGB reserves. It’s more like the Toyota Camry of health insurance.

If you want an easier, lower paying job. State employment. Leave policies, retirement benefits and consistent market adjustments are boons as well. The early 1/2/3 job title advancements are attractive as well but then often your career will stagnate being stuck behind public sector lifers.

If you want a higher earnings potential, likely faster paced, more volatile job, then private sector is a better option. Also a lot easier to leave a company when you're paying social security and a personal IRA/401k than it is to leave a state pension based job. Depending on field, private may also have better WFH policies and more freedom with working hour flexibility.


If you can, right now, I would go private before hiring on at LDWF, DENR, LDEQ, LDAF, LDOTD, CPRA.

Side note: one thing that isn't often mentioned with state employment is that while it is hard for the state to fire you, the focus and direction of your department is completely out of your control and up to the sitting governor and his appointees. (CPRA under Landry is a clear example of this.)