While the private sector created a modest number of new jobs in September, governments at all levels continued to downsize, especially schools and city and county agencies.

 

About 64,000 new jobs were offered by private employers last month. But federal, state and local government shed 82,000 positions, not including part-time jobs that the U.S. Census Bureau did away with. The biggest drops came at the local level, where schools eliminated 49,800 jobs and other local government cut another 26,300.

 

Over the last three months, the public sector has trimmed 143,000 jobs—that’s 1% of all local-government employment in the U.S. The reductions are the worst since the recession of 1981-1982.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

 

Unemployment Steady at 9.6 Percent (by David Rosnick, Center for Economic and Policy Research)

Biggest Local Cuts in 30 Years (by David Leonhardt, New York Times)

Public Jobs Drop Amid Slowdown in Private Hiring (by Catherine Rampell, New York Times)