State and local government employment shrank about 1 percent each last month — driven by education losses — while total jobs increased by less than 1 percent.
Outside education, state and local government actually added a small number of jobs: 800 at the state level, and 96,400 at the local level. Local government employs far more people than state or federal; that number was good for a 1.6 percent increase.
All numbers — except federal government, which is momentarily inflated because of Census employment — are still far below their levels in the same month of 2019.
Though there have been some gains in some places, the recovery is clearly not happening quickly like some people speculated it might during the early months of the pandemic. New unemployment claims have stabilized in recent weeks at close to four times their pre-pandemic levels, and President Donald Trump recently withdrew his support for any further stimulus package before the election, weakening the likelihood of aid coming in for governments looking at the possibility of making deep budget cuts.
Previous months of analysis: August, July, June, May, April
