20,900 Md. jobs lost in March
Maryland lost 20,900 jobs in March, reflecting some early impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the labor market, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday.
The state’s unemployment rate remained at 3.3%, according to preliminary figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But the March information predated many coronavirus-related business and school closures in the second half of the month, the Labor Department said.
“The effects we’ve seen from the public health crisis have yet to show up completely in the data,” said Alex Marre, an economist with the Federal Reserve in Richmond. In the March results, “you are beginning to see the early decline in leisure and hospitality, which includes restaurants and hotels and the like, the types of businesses likely to be the first affected by social distancing.
“We’re going to see this get a bit worse,” Marre said,
Unemployment rates were higher in March in 29 states and Washington, the report said. The national unemployment rate rose by a 0.9 percentage point over the month to 4.4%. “It is clear that the decreases in employment and hours and the increases in unemployment can be ascribed to effects of the illness and efforts to contain the virus,” the Labor Department said in its report Friday.
In Maryland, the number of jobs in the leisure and hospitality sectors plummeted by 11,600 positions, including 10,300 in accommodations and food services and 1,300 in arts, entertainment and recreation.
The professional and business services sector lost 5,700 jobs, including in the administrative and support and waste management category, remediation services and professional, scientific and technical services. That decrease was offset by an increase of 100 jobs in the management of companies and enterprises subsector.
The job numbers show the change since February on a seasonally adjusted basis.
The COVID-19-related shutdowns are expected to have a severe impact on Maryland’s economy, in which retail accounts for 10%, leisure and hospitality accounts for another 10% and there is potential for hiring freezes and layoffs in local government, which accounts for another 9%, Marre said.