It isn't "new" of course, but it's been greatly, greatly expanded. Back around that time, if you considered, say a school district... it'd be nearly a given that most of those people were employees of the school district. Nowadays? Practically the opposite.

So I guess what I was trying to say was, while it isn't new, it's become so common that one could say that things have basically "tipped".

And it's the idea that this state of affairs is somehow "standard" -- is what's the invention.