Private industry employers have been slowly adding jobs for 19 months. A net gain of 130,000 jobs was reported last week for the month of April. Meanwhile, though, the public sector lost 15,000 jobs in the month, continuing a nearly four-year-old cutback trend.

Those government job cuts have eliminated many jobs held predominantly by women and African-Americans.

“The disproportionate share of women and African-Americans working in state and local government has translated into higher rates of job loss for both groups in these sectors,” a report by the Economic Policy Institute said.

From 2007 to 2011, state and local governments shed about 765,000 jobs nationally. Women made up 70 percent and African-Americans 20 percent of those job losses, the institute said in a report last week.