BALTIMORE-TOWSON METROPOLITAN AREA JOB COUNT:  MARCH 2009 (PDF)

Employment Fell by 32,400 Over the Year

Total nonfarm employment for the Baltimore-Towson, Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) stood at 1,279,100 in March 2009, down 32,400 jobs over the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.  Local employment fell 2.5 percent over the last 12 months, less than the 3.6-percent decrease for the nation as a whole.  Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that the recent over-the-year net decline in the Baltimore-area job count was the largest since December 1991.  The local area has experienced 10 months of uninterrupted employment declines, beginning in June 2008.  (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 1999-2009

The trade, transportation, and utilities supersector lost more jobs than any other industry in the Baltimore area from March 2008 to March 2009, down 11,300, or 4.7 percent.  Almost all of the local employment decline, 10,700, took place in the suburban counties.  On a national level, trade, transportation, and utilities employment decreased by 4.3 percent.  (See chart B.)  The mining, logging, and construction supersector had the second largest loss of jobs locally, down 10,200 over the 12-month period.  Again, the suburbs accounted for most of the employment loss, shedding 8,600 of the mining, logging, and construction jobs in the area.

Chart B.  Over-the-year percent change in employment by selected industry supersector, United States and the Baltimore metropolitan area, March 2009

Other supersectors in the metropolitan area that experienced job losses from March 2008 to March 2009 included financial activities (-5,300), professional and business services (-5,100), leisure and hospitality (-3,700), manufacturing (-2,800), and information (-2,200).  Of these industries, three—financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and information—had faster rates of decline in Baltimore than the nation as a whole.  The remaining two industries—professional and business services and manufacturing—had slower rates of decline locally than nationally.

Government (4,600) and education and health services (3,800) were the only two supersectors to add jobs in the Baltimore area over the year.  In the public sector, local (2,100) and state (1,900) government jobs accounted for the bulk (87 percent) of the increase in employment.  Nearly all of the job expansion was located in the suburbs.  The Baltimore area added government jobs at a rate of 2.0 percent, five times the national growth rate of 0.4 percent.

In education and health services, local employment gains were split between Baltimore City (1,700) and the suburbs (2,100).  While the area’s growth rate for this industry (1.7 percent) fell below that for the nation (2.3 percent), the gain was part of an uninterrupted period of over-the-year advances stretching back to September 2003.  Since March 1990, the first year this data series was available, education and health services employment in the Baltimore area has added more jobs than any other supersector, increasing by 85,500.

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 which 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 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 which 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 and administrative data 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 are also 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 special 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, dated November 20, 2008.  A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.

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.