The September 2010 employment report released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics again showed positive but totally inadequate private sector employment growth, with the addition of 64,000 private sector jobs in September. State and local governments, their budgets crunched, lost 83,000 jobs.
The pain of the state and local budget problems is clear in these numbers: Of the 83,000 state and local jobs lost, 58,000 were in education, as teachers and other education workers were not called back for the new school year.
September was the first month this year where, barring changes in temporary Census workers, the labor market lost jobs. With the impact of the Recovery Act fading out, it is up to Congress to do more. The economy is no better, no worse. America’s workers are still in hell. -Heidi Shierholz, EPI economist