Job Creation

Democrat businessman John Delaney won the endorsement of President Bill Clinton on Monday in his bid for Maryland's 6th Congressional District. Clinton's endorsement is a significant one for the Potomac financier, who has widely been seen as having less institutional Democratic support in the competitive race than his leading opponent, state Sen. Rob Garagiola. The announcement also comes as Garagiola's campaign has questioned Delaney's loyalty to the party, noting a political contribution to Maryland Republican Rep. Andy Harris in 2010.

Maryland businesses announced plans in 2010 to add more than 15,000 jobs and make $4 billion in capital investment, according to a state study released Thursday. The 2010 New & Expanding Businesses in Maryland report, compiled by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, examined new economic activity based on public announcements made by new and existing businesses in the state. The data does not measure actual net job growth in the state. Net job growth in the state in 2010 was larger than what the report found.

Gov. Martin O'Malley returned to the national stage Sunday after a Democratic National Convention speech that received tepid reviews, facing off with Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt over job creation and women's issues on CNN. Questioned by CNN's Candy Crowley, O'Malley defended President Obama's handling of the U.S. economy, asserting that employment is now greater than it was when the president took office. He said job creation could have been more robust if Republicans hadn't blocked Obama's jobs creation legislation in Congress.

Whether Susan Rice jumped or was pushed from consideration to succeed retiring Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her removal from the equation clears one bone of partisan contention from President Barack Obama's plate as he heads into his second term. The UN ambassador asserted that she withdrew her name to save her boss from "an enduring partisan battle" that would further distract him and the country from urgent national priorities, including job creation, deficit reduction, immigration reform and "protecting our national securitiy.

Walter Bowen Jr. was hoping the early bird would catch the job. The Elkridge resident had arrived at 7 a.m. for a job fair at Fort Meade so he could meet with recruiters before they'd been exhausted by crowds of job-seekers. "I wanted to be one of the first five people in line — get in there when people are fresh," said Bowen, 39, a Navy veteran. More than 1,000 people were expected to attend Wednesday's Technical Job Fair, which was open to the public. Some job hunters came from as far away as California and Chicago, said Jerome Duncan, a business work-force specialist with the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

A Maryland maker of anthrax vaccine said Friday that it has bought a 55,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in East Baltimore that it will use to expand its operations, potentially creating as many as 125 jobs in the city over the next five years that initially were expected in Frederick. Emergent BioSolutions Inc., a 600-person bio-pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Rockville, bought the East Baltimore facility for $7.85 million from the MdBio Foundation, a charitable and educational foundation that supports the state's bioscience industry.

For the coming election cycle, the word, "jobs," is the new black. It's the buzzword that transcends the left and the right. From the parties of Occupy Wall Street to the tea parties of last year, the one thing everyone can agree on is that jobs represent the one thing they can agree on. Trouble is, they can't agree on how to create them. With so many divergent points of view converging around jobs, it's important to understand what a job is. At its most basic, a job is a voluntary transaction between two entities - a buyer and a seller.

Can you revive a decaying inner-city economy? The Clinton administration is betting $100 million in Baltimore and five other cities that proposals for reinvigorating stagnating neighborhoods will yield economic benefits. But already, decisions about how Baltimore's empowerment zone money will be spent reflect the familiar argument between those who want to focus on social services and those who want to direct precious dollars into job creation.Last week, the board overseeing Baltimore's empowerment zone approved $6.4 million to pay for 1,200 drug treatment slots and day care subsidies for 360 children.

Maryland employers created only 200 jobs last month, but the unemployment rate declined, in part because some job seekers stopped looking for work. The state's unemployment rate was 3.9 percent in October, down from 4.1 percent in September, according to U.S. Labor Department numbers released yesterday. Payroll employment in Maryland decreased by 2,200 in August and has been slow to rebound. Employers added 100 jobs in September, according to revised estimates from the Labor Department.