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The presidential election will cause a huge boom and bust for some American workers

Bob Bryan   

The presidential election will cause a huge boom and bust for some American workers
Stock Market2 min read

trump campaign staff worker

Rainier Ehrhardt/Reuters

A volunteer campaign staff member assembles a backdrop at U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's campaign headquarters in Greenville, South Carolina February 16, 2016

Running a national campaign takes a lot of effort. The so-called ground game of presidential campaigns are massive opportunities for people to find jobs.

Those jobs also disappear incredibly fast.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, campaigns could employ roughly 20,000 people this year, a massive jump from the 8,270 working for political organizations in 2015.

Most of this increase will be due to the presidential and congressional elections.

"Employment has been higher in years with both presidential and congressional elections than in years with only congressional elections," said a post from the BLS.

"October employment reached 20,207 in 2008 and 19,073 in 2012 (years with presidential elections), but peaked at 16,205 in 2010 and 17,819 in 2014 (years with congressional elections but no presidential election)."

The problem, however, is that these jobs aren't built to last. For one thing, every race has a loser, who most likely needs almost none of the new staff hired. For another, once elected, politicians have much smaller staffing needs while in office.

This leads to the bust portion of the political labor market.

"Steep decreases have occurred after these election-year peaks," said the BLS. "Employment lows occurred during the first 3 months of odd-numbered years (6,148 in March 2009; 5,866 in February 2011; 6,187 in February 2013; and 6,585 in February 1015)."

So while the increase in 2015 is good news for an already historically tight labor market, an ensuing bust is just on the horizon.

chart

Bureau of Labor Statistics

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