EYE ON THE ECONOMY: AN INTERACTIVE LOOK AT MARYLAND AND THE REGIONAL ECONOMY IN DECEMBER 2019

• The most recent jobs report showed that between November and December, Maryland gained a total of 6,500 Total Nonfarm jobs, consisting entirely of a change in Total Private jobs with no shift in Government positions.
• Job gains for 2019 totaled 31,000 jobs, just managing to exceed overall job growth for 2018.
• The unemployment rate for Maryland decreased to 3.5 percent in December.

According to the most recent jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Maryland gained 6,500 Total Nonfarm positions between November and December. This increase was entirely due to a 6,500 position boost in Total Private jobs, with no net change in Government jobs over the past month. With the final month in the books, the preliminary total for job growth in Maryland in 2019 comes to a total of 31,000 jobs. This means that despite considerable job losses during the first half of the year, Maryland has bounced back to have the best year for job growth since 2016. As a result, Maryland’s unemployment rate in December dropped yet again, this time to 3.5 percent.

In 2019, Maryland made the largest gains at the supersector level in the Professional and Business Services and Leisure and Hospitality sectors, each adding 7,300 jobs. Additionally, the Education and Health Services sector increased by 6,700 positions. Only two supersectors saw an overall decrease in 2019: the Information sector (1,500 jobs lost) and the Manufacturing sector (700 jobs lost). On the subsector level, Maryland’s largest gain for the year was in Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services with 7,500 added jobs, followed by a 5,200 position increase in State Government, and a gain of 4,800 jobs in the Accommodation and Food Services subsector. Maryland’s biggest loss was in the Information subsector (equivalent to the Information supersector described above), followed by a loss of 1,300 positions in Educational Services.

Neighboring states in the Mid-Atlantic region experienced mixed results this month, with positive numbers for Virginia and Delaware being offset by job losses in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. However, all four of Maryland’s neighbors gained jobs overall in 2019. The largest job gains in 2019 were seen in Virginia, with 45,200 jobs added, although the 10,900 jobs added in Washington, D.C. represents the largest growth relative to size. Although Maryland’s gains look modest next to Virginia’s raw total, the two states experienced nearly the same percentage of growth in 2019. The overall unemployment rate for neighboring states ended 2019 at 3.8 percent overall, although Virginia maintained its lead of 2.6 percent.

MID-ATLANTIC REGIONAL EMPLOYMENT WORKBOOK

To make more sense of what’s happening with Maryland’s employment numbers, we’ve embedded our new tool: the Mid-Atlantic Regional Employment Workbook. This dashboard allows you to examine 29 different industries to see how employment is varying in Maryland, as well as four other states in the Mid-Atlantic region.

This was originally published at EngageTU.com.