Looking for a Job? Prospects Up in Maryland

Finding a job in Maryland got substantially easier in some fields last month, buoyed by growth in private industry and the state’s military industrial complex, while nationally the job market will continue to be tough into 2012, state and national statistics indicate.

Locally, growth in jobs is in hotels, package delivery and military support, including in cybersecurity and at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Nationally, small business appears to be the bright spot.

In Maryland, the unemployment rate dropped to 6.9 percent in November, compared to 7.2 percent in October, according to preliminary data released by the U.S. Department of Labor earlier this week. That’s 1.7 percentage points below the national average and the first time the state’s rate has dropped below 7 percent since May.

“It’s generally a nice trend going on here,” economist Daraius Irani, director of the Regional Economic Studies Institute’s applied economics and human services group at Towson University, told the Gazette newspapers.

Specifically, UPS and Marriott International were leaders in job growth, while Fort Meade and Walter Reed added a total of about 6,500 jobs. Cybersecurity was also an important area of growth.

“The 0.3 percentage point reduction in the state jobless rate is the largest single-month improvement since the start of the recession," Maryland Labor Secretary Alexander Sanchez said in a statement. "While this month's report is another positive sign, our job growth must accelerate to keep Maryland competitive in the new economy.”

Nationally, results of a CareerBuilder job forecast released this week showed that 23 percent of 3,000 human resource and hiring professionals surveyed said they would add full-time staff in 2012, compared to 24 percent in 2011.

Seven percent said they would cut head count in 2012, equal to 2011 but an improvement from 9 percent in 2010.

Among businesses with 50 or fewer employees, though, 16 percent said they would be hiring new employees, a 1 percent increase from last year. For businesses with up to 250 employees, 20 percent planned to add full-time, permanent staff, up from 19 percent last year, CareerBuilder said.

Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder, said in a statement that employers tend to actually hire more than they predict they will.

“Many companies have been operating lean and have already pushed productivity limits,” he said.

The Northeast was seen as the least likely geographical area to add jobs, at 21 percent, with the West the highest at 24 percent.