It’s a tough time to celebrate the American worker. This coming Monday is set to mark the third consecutive Labor Day with an unemployment rate around 9% and 14 million Americans looking for work. The median unemployed worker has been jobless for six months. The past year has been especially tumultuous for the labor movement, from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s defanging of his state’s public-sector union to the recent strike by 45,000 Verizon that ended with a whimper instead of a bang. Even leaders in reliably Democratic states like California, Connecticut, and New York are wresting concessions from government employees in the face of local budget deficits for the foreseeable future.

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Finding bad news in Friday’s job report wasn’t hard — job growth was way below projections, the unemployment rate still hovers above 9%, and most industries saw job losses in June. But a few sectors created jobs and have been doing so for months, bucking the national trend and giving workers hope. Here’s a look at a few of the bright spots from the government’s latest numbers.

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In a sign of continued improvement in the job market, private sector employers added over 200,000 positions in March and the number of planned job cuts fell, according to two reports released Wednesday.

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