Maryland's jobless rate climbed to 5.3 percent last month, keeping it at a more than 12-year high, the Labor Department said yesterday.
It was the worst unemployment rate for the state since January 1996, when it hit 5.4 percent, and the number reflected the worsening turmoil in the financial, credit and housing markets.
"It's to be expected in light of worsening economic conditions," said Daraius Irani, director of applied economics for the RESI consulting arm of Towson University. "Maryland is going to get hit, and going forward will see an increase in the unemployment rate."
Maryland's November unemployment rate increased, on a seasonally adjusted basis, from 4.9 percent in October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics adjusted that rate from the preliminary number of 5 percent reported last month.
Maryland was among 37 states and the District of Columbia reporting month-over-month jobless increases in November.
The nation's jobless rate last month rose to 6.7 percent, the government had reported earlier, as U.S. employers shed 533,000 jobs. That was the biggest job loss in a single month since December 1974. Maryland is expected to be buffered to some extent from the nation's rate of job losses because the region is not heavily dependent upon manufacturing and has a high share of federal government jobs.
Still, the number of out-of-work Maryland residents is growing. Preliminary numbers released yesterday showed that about 158,000 Maryland residents are looking but have been unable to find work, a 52 percent jump since the beginning of the year.
On a month-to-month basis, payroll employment fell in 41 states. Maryland lost 4,900 jobs in November, bringing payroll employment down to 2.63 million jobs, the government statistics showed. Many of those likely came in the hardest-hit sectors of construction, retail, financial services and manufacturing, or were tied to the auto industry, as manufacturers slow production.
Maria Solitario, a Lutherville resident with a background in psychology and early childhood education, has been looking for a job mostly at hospitals or preschools for more than a year. Solitario was laid off in October 2007 as a supervisor for a residential treatment facility in Baltimore as part of budget cuts, and now she finds herself overqualified for many jobs. But she says she can't afford to take an entry-level job.
