Companies added just 64,000 jobs in September 2010, down from 93,000 jobs in August and 117,000 in July 2010. Overall, though, the picture was more bleak for September 2010. The economy overall lost 95,000 non-farm jobs because there was a decline of 159,000 government positions.

"We need to wake up to the fact that the end of the stimulus has really hit hard on local governments," said Andrew Stettner, deputy diredctor of the National Employment Law Project. "There is much more of a slide in the job market than what we really need to clearly turn around."

With the waning of the $787 billion Recovery Act passed in 2009 and credited with increasing employment by millions of jobs, finding new policies potent enough to speed up the recovery has proved difficult, reports Catherine Rampell of the NY Times on October 9, 2010.

"We’re looking for companies to get more confident in the pace of recoery and start to hire around 150,000 jobs a month, which is what we need just to keep the unemployment rate flat," said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics. "But I just don’t see that happening between now and the end of the year."

Catherine Rampell reports: "Flat hourly wages, now at an average of $22.67, also threaten what fragile confidence American families may have in their household budgets. [] Government jobs have been disappearing the last few months as the census winds down. [ ](September), 77,000 Census Bureau employees were let go. But local governmetns cut 76,000 positions as well. State governments shed 7,000 workers."

For the 14.8 million people out of work, the picture is not brightening. The average duration of unemployment continues to hover at record highs. In september, the typical unemployed worker had been searching for a job for 33.3 weeks, reports Ms. Rampell.

See Ms. Rampell’s article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/business/economy/09jobs.html?scp=1&sq=Public+jobs+drop+amid+slowdown+in+private+hiring&st=nyt