The complete view of Minnesota’s public sector includes state government, local units of government, and higher education. Most of the data on this site is based on direct state employees that is collected and reported by MMB through the state’s payroll system (SEMA4).

Employment levels can be measured in two ways: the number of employees (head count) and full time equivalents (FTE). Both measures can be useful and the primary difference is due to the number of part-time and seasonal workers. As a result, the number of FTE’s will tend to be lower than the total number of employees.