(CNSNews.com) – The number of people working for the federal government has declined by 11,000 in 2017 while the number working for state governments has declined 2,000, according to data published today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But because the number of people employed by local governments has climbed 12,000 so far this year, the overall decline in the number of people employed nationwide by government has only dropped by 1,000 in 2017.

Meanwhile, even though manufacturing jobs have increased by 137,000 this year, the number employed by government in August still exceeded the number employed in manufacturing by 9,818,000.

In December 2016, there were 22,299,000 people employed by federal, state and local governments in the United States. By August, that had dropped to 22,298,000—a decline of 1,000.