The rehiring of close to 300,000 local teachers was a key element of President Barack Obama's proposed "Jobs Act," and the president frequently turns to the subject of education staffing in discussing his economic platform. "All across America - tens of thousands of teachers are getting laid off," the president warned in a weekly radio address in June, and in his first debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney, Obama bemoaned the "layoffs of hundreds of thousands of teachers over the last several years."
However, today's U.S. Labor Department jobs report indicates that a net 2,500 jobs were added to local government education payrolls between August and September, for a total gain of 10,000 since September 2011. The education subsector of state government, which consists mainly of colleges and universities, also has been growing.
Government at every level contributed 10,000 new jobs to the net total of 114,000 created in September, on a seasonally adjusted basis. It appears that employment losses in the government sector, which have been far less severe than those in the private sector since 2008, bottomed out in July, at least for the time being.
Details, pulled from today's Labor Department estimates:
To be sure, local government education employment is still about 280,000 jobs below the 2008 peak. But as noted here recently, relative to enrollment, it remains above the 2000 level.
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