Jobs Report Shows Increase in Education Hiring
By guest blogger Ben Kamisar
Local education employment reached its highest level since March 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report released Tuesday, numbers the White House described as encouraging.
Local government education employment hit 7,827,700, a monthly increase of 9,500 jobs. That brought the overall gain to 56,400 jobs since June.
Betsey Stevenson, a member of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, took to social media to tout the school jobs numbers:
Employment in education has a long way to go, but it’s good to see it turning the corner. pic.twitter.com/E9zclKhOH1
— Betsey Stevenson (@CEABetsey) October 22, 2013
“While local education jobs appear to have stabilized and even started increasing in recent months, there is much further to go,” Jason Furman, the chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors wrote in a White House blog post appearing after the release of the BLS numbers. He added that the administration is pursing strategies to further stimulate the hiring of teachers.
Excluding education, local governments lost 3,400 jobs. But the positive education numbers brought local government hiring back into the black. Here’s how Stevenson explained the employment shift in a tweet:
.@bkamisar Local govt empt was +6K jobs, but empt excluding educ fell & local govt incl educ was +9.5K. We don’t have a further breakdown.
— Betsey Stevenson (@CEABetsey) October 22, 2013
The increase comes despite the administration’s warnings that sequestration cuts would slash thousands of education jobs. However, local education employment has seen mostly modest gains since the cuts went into effect in March.