Over the course of the last year finding jobs in Baltimore has become more difficult. During the month of March approximately 7.4 percent of the city’s population was without work. Although this was a small decline of 0.2 percent from the previous month’s 7.6 percent, it was significantly higher when compared to that of March 2008. Only a year prior all but 3.8 percent of the residents had jobs.
Like most of the country, Baltimore’s job market has obviously seen the effects of the economic recession, which is apparent in the rising unemployment rate. Despite this the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore says the area isn’t suffering as badly as many other city centers have been for the last year.
According to the Partnerships State of Downtown Report, Baltimore’s downtown area only lost somewhere around 1,000 for the entire year of 2008. Currently there are 4,231 employers in the area providing 113,500 Baltimore jobs. Last year there were 4,288 employers in the down town area and 114,500 jobs.
The Partnership also found that several sectors in the area have continued to create new jobs in the downtown Baltimore area. Surprisingly the retail sector generated enough positions to be considered one of the faster growing areas of employment. This is shocking considering that the retail industries in most cities are suffering greatly due to the fact that people have less money to spend on unnecessary consumer goods. Other employers that created new jobs included those in the hotel businesses, restaurant owners and construction companies, the last of which is one of the businesses that have done away with the most jobs across the country. Also generating new positions were the professional services industry and accounting and engineering firms.
Industries where employment saw a decrease in the area included financial companies and publisher. The Partnership said that the latter was especially true for newspaper publishers. With the rise of the Internet, many people have begun using it to get their news. Because of this, newspapers have seen a decline in both their readerships and interested advertisers. Also falling were educational positions, which the Partnership says is due to a hiring freeze.
Although the majority of the report spoke of good news for jobs in downtown Baltimore, the Partnership admitted that they do expect positions to continue to decline for the remainder of 2009. Considering the fact that many experts don’t expect the recession to end for sometime now.