• The most recent jobs report showed that between July and August, Maryland gained a total of 24,200 Total Nonfarm jobs.
  • The official unemployment rate for Maryland dropped to 6.9 percent.

According to the most recent jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Maryland gained a total of 24,200 Total Nonfarm positions between July and August of 2020. This total resulted from a recovery of 21,100 Total Private jobs and 3,100 Total Government positions. According to the official BLS estimate, Maryland’s unemployment rate has dropped to 6.9 percent in August. This continues the recovery of the state’s labor market, but is still nearly twice the unemployment rate seen one year ago in August 2019.

As many of the hardest hit subsectors have already bounced back significantly, labor market gains in August were seen as a smaller increase across many different parts of the economy. The largest job increase was seen in Federal Government, which gained 4,300 jobs. This was followed by Accommodation and Food Services, with 4,000 recovered jobs, Retail Trade, which increased by 3,500 jobs, and Other Services, which added 3,400 positions. Another five subsectors added between 1,000 and 3,000 jobs, along with five more that gained fewer than 1,000 positions.

While most subsectors added jobs in August, a few saw small decreases. The most significant loss was seen in State Government, which dropped by 1,800 jobs. This follows a much larger decrease in State Government jobs that occurred between June and July, and may be related to state budgetary concerns stemming from the effects of the pandemic. Each of the other five subsectors that lost jobs in August experienced a decrease of less than 1,000 positions.

Maryland’s labor market recovery is second in the region only to Virginia, which dropped to an unemployment rate of 6.1 percent in August. Both Delaware and Pennsylvania also experienced significant drops in unemployment rates between July and August, though both states still report a higher rate than Maryland. On the other hand, the District of Columbia reported a slight decrease in jobs between July and August, while their unemployment rate remained unchanged.

Mid-Atlantic Regional Employment Workbook

To make more sense of what’s happening with Maryland’s employment numbers, we’ve embedded our 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. To use the dashboard, select a sector of the economy that interests you from the dropdown at the top. When you change the sector of interest, the map and five line graphs will update to reflect historical data for that industry. Want to know how employment changed in the sector last month? Hover over each state in the map for percentage changes. Or hover over the line graphs to get more detailed information on the number of employees each month since January 2017 by state.