As media voices and public school officials have clamored about a shortage of teachers in Michigan, state data suggests the statewide student-to-teacher ratio is more favorable now than it was in the 2007-08 school year.

In that school year, there were 1,645,742 public school students in Michigan. In the 2020-21 year, the statewide enrollment number is 1,437,612, or 12.6% lower.

Yet the number of Michigan public school teachers has fallen very little, from 111,419 in 2007-08 to 110,788 in the current school year, or a difference of just 631 teachers. That’s a decline of roughly half a percent.

Thirteen years ago, there were 14.7 Michigan public school students for each teacher. In 2020-21, there were 13.0 students per teacher, or 11.5% fewer. The Michigan Department of Education’s published data on teacher employment goes back to 2007-08.

Crain’s Detroit Business reported March 28, “K-12 schools in Michigan are already experiencing critical shortages of teachers across all subjects, particularly math, science and special education.”

"It didn't pop up overnight during COVID," said Tina Kerr, executive director of the Michigan Association of School Administrators, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. "This is certainly a problem that's been very alarming to us in the past."

Over the past five years, there has been a 12.5% increase in the number of teachers working in Michigan public schools. During the same time, there has been a 6.2% decrease in student enrollment.

The number of Michigan’s public school teachers increased from 98,481 in 2016-17 to 110,788 in 2020-21, the most recent year state data is available. At the same time, enrollment has declined from 1.53 million to 1.44 million students.

The impact of government COVID-19 lockdowns on the earnings and employment of workers can be seen in recent federal labor statistics.

In Feb. 2020 Michigan's employment totaled 4.73 million according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

By Feb. 2021, employment here had fallen by 6.9% to 4.41 million people.

In the U.S. as a whole, in Feb. 2021 employment totaled 149.52 million, which is 5.4% lower than the 158.02 million workers in Feb. 2020.

Michigan’s employment losses over this period were the 12th worst in the country.