You can say what you want about cuts in government hiring, but the private sector is not “doing fine” as President Obama has suggested. Private-sector job growth continues to be sluggish at best, having downshifted significantly from earlier this year. Here is JPMorgan:

Private hiring remained subdued last month, increasing only 84,000. Government employment contracted only 4,000 last month, thanks in part to a jump in local, non-educational government employment. Job growth in goods-producing industries rebounded from -21,000 in May to 13,000 in June, mostly due to a rebound in construction employment. Manufacturing employment rose a trend-like 11,000 last month, though given recent worrying signals from the factory sector there are reasons to be concerned that this industry may cease to be a net job creator in coming months. Private, service-providing industries added an anemic 71,000 jobs last month. The tepid pace of job growth was fairly widespread across service industries.