Baltimore-Towson Metropolitan Area Job Count in March 2008
Rose by 8,900 Over the Year (PDF)

Total nonfarm employment for the Baltimore-Towson, Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) stood at 1,317,900 in March 2008, up 8,900 jobs over the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.  Baltimore’s employment increased 0.7 percent over the 12-month period, compared to a 0.4-percent gain for the nation as a whole in March 2008.  Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that the over-the-year employment advances in the Baltimore metropolitan area extended back to August 2003 without interruption--the 56th consecutive increase in local payrolls.  (See chart A and table 1; Technical Note at end of release contains metropolitan area definitions.  All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

Chart A.  Total nonfarm employment, over-the-year percent change in the United States and Baltimore metropolitan area, March 1998-2008

In the Baltimore metropolitan area, four industry supersectors (education and health services, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and information) added 1,000 or more jobs from March 2007 to March 2008, while two others (financial activities and manufacturing) lost 1,000 or more jobs over the same period.  Employment in the remaining four supersectors (natural resources, mining, and construction; trade, transportation, and utilities; other services; and government) changed by less than 1,000 jobs from March a year ago in the metropolitan area.  (See chart B.)

Chart B.  Over-the-year percent change in employment by selected industry supersector, United States and the Baltimore metropolitan area, March 2008

Employment growth in the Baltimore area was led by a 5,800-job gain in education and health services, an increase of 2.6 percent.  This supersector has experienced uninterrupted over-the-year growth since September 2003.  Nevertheless, the local growth rate in education and health services was below the 3.0-percent national average.  In March 2008, there were 227,900 education and health services jobs in Baltimore, making it the second-largest supersector in the area.

Over the last 12 months, the professional and business services supersector added 5,100 jobs.  The 2.7-percent advance in Baltimore was nearly four times the national increase of 0.7 percent.  Since March 1990, the first year for which data are available, the professional and business services job count has increased by 72,200, or 59.7 percent, in the Baltimore area.

The leisure and hospitality supersector gained 2,300 jobs from March 2007 to March 2008.  The recent local advance represented a 2.1-percent increase; nationally, leisure and hospitality added jobs at a 2.4-percent pace.

Employment in the information supersector rose by 1,400 jobs, or 6.1 percent, over the 12-months ending March 2008.  Nationally, information employment fell by 0.6 percent during this period.  With 24,500 jobs, information was the smallest supersector in the Baltimore area, representing 1.9 percent of the area workforce.

The financial activities industry lost 2,600 jobs over the year; this represented a 3.2-percent decline, more than twice the 1.4-percent national decrease. 

Manufacturing lost 2,400 jobs from March a year ago, a decline of 3.4 percent.  Nationally, employment in this supersector fell by 2.3 percent.  Over-the-year, manufacturing job losses in the Baltimore area have continued almost uninterrupted for 18 years.  Since March 1990, the manufacturing supersector has lost 62,200 jobs, or 47.5 percent of its workforce.

Technical Note

This release presents nonfarm payroll employment estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program. The CES survey is a Federal-State cooperative endeavor in which State employment security agencies prepare the data using concepts, definitions, and technical procedures prescribed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Definitions. Employment data refer to persons on establishment payrolls who receive pay for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. Persons are counted at their place of work rather than at their place of residence; those appearing on more than one payroll are counted on each payroll. Industries are classified on the basis of their principal activity in accordance with the 2007 version of the North American Industry Classification System.

Method of estimation. The employment data are estimated using a "link relative" technique in which a ratio (link relative) of current-month employment to that of the previous month is computed from a sample of establishments reporting for both months. The estimates of employment for the current month are obtained by multiplying the estimates for the previous month by these ratios. Small-domain models are used as the official estimators for the approximately 39 percent of CES published series which have insufficient sample for direct sample-based estimates.

Annual revisions. Employment estimates are adjusted annually to a complete count of jobs, called benchmarks, derived principally from tax reports that are submitted by employers who are covered under state unemployment insurance (UI) laws. The benchmark information is used to adjust the monthly estimates between the new benchmark and the preceding one and also to establish the level of employment for the new benchmark month. Thus, the benchmarking process establishes the level of employment, and the sample is used to measure the month-to-month changes in the level for the subsequent months.

Reliability of the estimates

The estimates presented in this release are based on sample survey, administrative data, and modeling and, thus, are subject to sampling and other types of errors. Sampling error is a measure of sampling variability--that is, variation that occurs by chance because a sample rather than the entire population is surveyed. Survey data also are subject to nonsampling errors, such as those which can be introduced into the data collection and processing operations. Estimates not directly derived from sample surveys are subject to additional errors resulting from the specific estimation processes used. The sums of individual items may not always equal the totals shown in the same tables because of rounding.

Employment estimates.  Measures of sampling error for state CES data at the supersector level are available on the BLS Web site at www.bls.gov/sae/790stderr.htm.  Information on recent benchmark revisions for states is available at www.bls.gov/sae/.

Area definitions. The substate area data published in this release reflect the standards and definitions established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on November 20, 2007. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.whitehouse.gov/omb/bulletins/fy2008/b08-01.pdf.

The Baltimore-Towson, Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) includes Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard, and Queen Anne’s Counties and Baltimore City in Maryland.

Additional information

Industry employment data for states and metropolitan areas from the CES program are also available in the above mentioned news releases and from the Internet at (www.bls.gov/sae/).

For personal assistance or further information on the Current Employment Statistics program, as well as other Bureau programs, contact the Mid-Atlantic Information Office at 215-597-3282 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET.