State Capital of Iowa (Getty Images/David Greedy)

(CNSNews.com) - As the number of people employed in the United States climbed to a record 156,949,000, the number of people working for government in the country declined by 5,000, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As of January, 22,488,000 people were employed by government in the United States, according to BLS. In February, that dropped to 22,483,000.

Local government led the way in trimming employment by dropping 4,000 jobs. There were 14,512,000 people working for local governments in January, but only 14,508,000 in February. State government employment dropped by 1,000 from January to February—declining from 5,177,000 to 5,176,000 in February.

Federal employment saw no change at all. It was 2,799,000 in both January and February.