Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Janice Eberly, the U.S. Treasury Department’s chief economist, said today cuts in jobs in the public sector continue to be a drag on the economy.

“We are starting to see growth more in the private sector,” Eberly, the Treasury’s assistant secretary for economic policy, said at a conference hosted by Women in Housing and Finance in Washington. Job cuts, particularly in state and local governments, are hampering employment growth, she said. “Many of the public sector job cuts have been teachers,” she said.

The warm winter has had a mixed impact on the economy, she said. “The more general effect of the weather is it had a negative effect on utilities. Eberly said. ‘‘It did seem to help in the construction’’ industry.

‘‘We are already seeing fiscal drag in the fourth-quarter 2011 gross domestic product data,’’ Eberly said. ‘‘The biggest component of the increase was from the inventories. We should absolutely be concerned about the path of fiscal policy going forward.’’

--Editors: Kevin Costelloe, Gail DeGeorge

To contact the reporter on this story: Meera Louis in Washington at mlouis1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Kevin Costelloe at kcostelloe@bloomberg.net