Job Loss

Maryland shed 6,000 jobs in April, the federal government said Friday — the largest monthly loss in the country during a month when most states gained, but one that might have been overstated. The figures, which are preliminary and adjusted for seasonal variations, paint a much less rosy picture of Maryland employment than in recent months. As it released the April numbers, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday that it also revised downward its estimate for March, showing Maryland losing 600 jobs rather than adding 1,500.

In a recent Sun article, "Labor officials bring minimum wage push to Baltimore" (May 14), a researcher from the labor union-supported Economic Policy Institute claims that the "majority of minimum-wage earners work for large companies in the retail, fast-food and hospitality sectors, not for small businesses. " This is not true: Two-thirds of lower-wage workers are at businesses with 100 or more employees, not "large companies. " These 100-employee businesses could just as well be a small restaurant franchisee with five locations or a regional grocery store chain with three locations.

THIS LABOR DAY, with the fragile U.S. economy finally showing some life, Americans confront the deep trouble of not just a jobless recovery, but a job-loss rebound - the result of still weak demand, incessant corporate cost-cuts and the quickening march of jobs abroad. About this time - 29 months after the onset of the last recession and 21 months after its official end - employment ought to be expanding. But this recovery remains uniquely scarred by outright job losses. It's so bad that the unemployment rate's recent dip to 6.2 percent was big news.

The Maryland Hospital Association said Friday that jobs may be in jeopardy if a state commission approves a plan that would make hospitals absorb all of the 2 percent Medicare cuts required under federal sequestration. The board of the Health Services Cost Review Commission, which sets the state's hospital rates, is scheduled to vote Wednesday on how to implement the cuts. The commission's staff has recommended a plan that keeps hospital rates flat for the last three months of fiscal year 2013, which ends June 30. Hospitals are pushing for a rate increase to help offset the cost of the cuts.

You pay thousands in deposits for a trip, then get laid off. Now what? If your travel insurer, cruise or airline company offers a "job-loss guarantee," you might get your money back. Or not, depending on the policy. Job-loss coverage is nothing new in travel, but more companies have jumped in the past two months. JetBlue Airways, Norwegian Cruise Line and at least two cruise sellers have announced layoff policies, and insurers are tweaking the rules. Typically, such policies return trip deposits if you get laid off. In March, Travelex Insurance Services of Omaha, Neb., a big industry player whose travel policies have covered job loss since 1996, decreased from three years to one year the length of time you must be with an employer to qualify for the benefit, said Vice President Sally Dunlap.

There was a time when Conchy Bretos thought she would spend her entire career in government. Then Bretos lost a 1993 election for a seat on the Dade County Commission in Florida after a nasty campaign. And when she tried to return to her job as executive director of the county's Commission on the Status of Women, Bretos was fired. While her supporters complained bitterly that it was political retribution, she was not reinstated. She lost her political clout and many of her personal contacts, but Bretos was able to use one of her important contacts to become Florida's assistant secretary for aging and adult services.

IT WAS A STUNNING BLOW to folks in Garrett County, Maryland's western-most subdivision. Bausch & Lomb, the area's largest employer, announced it was shutting its 25-year-old plant in Oakland by the end of the year. That means a loss of 600 good-paying jobs in a town of only 1,700 residents. The company's contribution to the local economy nearly equals the entire county budget.Oakland's mayor said he was in "disbelief." There was no advance warning, no time for a counter-offer. Bausch and Lomb is struggling.

IMAGINE WALKING into your office, as always, and discovering that your desk has been cleaned out; your department is shuttered and locked; or you have 30 minutes to collect your belongings and leave. Would you be able to cope with unemployment? Companies are hiring - unemployment stood at 5 percent in July, down from more than 6 percent two years ago - but the job market is less than robust. And there's always the risk that your employer will defy statistics: Technology giant Hewlett-Packard Co., for instance, announced last month that it would eliminate about 10 percent of its full-time work force.

The first time he was fired, Bill Gentz didn't have a clue about what was coming. He got the pink slip just a few hours after receiving a favorable performance review and a raise.Mr. Gentz, who had been planning how to tell his wife about his raise, suddenly found himself rehearsing how to tell her he'd lost his job."I was in a state of shock. It came out of the blue," Mr. Gentz says of the layoff in 1981. He still resents the way the Philadelphia chemical company let him go without warning after 10 years of service.

Maryland tied for the fastest pace of job loss in the past year in June, the federal government estimated Friday, the second month in a row that the state was at or near the bottom of the heap. The state's unemployment rate — which had been trending downward for months — hit 7 percent in June, up from 6.8 percent in May, the U.S. Department of Labor reported. It was the first time the jobless rate had risen since January 2010. Maryland lost nearly 15,000 jobs over the past 12 months, spread across most major sectors, according to the agency's estimates.

If Robert Reich is looking for "baloney" in the debate over minimum wage hikes, he should start with his recent commentary in The Sun ("The minimum wage and the meaning of a decent society," Feb. 20). Contrary to Mr. Reich's claim, the academic and economic consensus that wage hikes lead to job losses is overwhelming and based on far more than just vague claims. A nonpartisan review conducted by David Neumark (UC-Irvine) and William Wascher (Federal Reserve) concluded that 85 percent of credible economic studies on minimum wage increases from the last two decades point to job loss following a wage hike.

Kudos to Bill Barry for his comprehensive explanation of why jobs lost during the Great Recession are not coming back ("A farewell to jobs?" Feb. 8). The list of reasons is extensive: new technologies that obviate the need to rehire workers, corporate mergers, government cutbacks, increased productivity, and off-shoring of jobs, just to mention a few. (Not mentioned is our ever-increasing population, which only makes the problem that much worse). Mr. Barry's article gives the lie to the so-called "job creators" and their political stooges who keep insisting that cutting taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations will stimulate employment.

General Assembly analysts released estimates Wednesday painting a much grimmer picture of the impact of a continued federal budget impasse than the O'Malley administration did less than a month ago. In a presentation to legislature's fiscal committees, The Department of Legislative Services warned that if the scenario known as going over the "fiscal cliff" plays out, Maryland could lose 53,500 jobs during the budget year ending June 30 and 60,200...

The number of manufacturing jobs in Maryland seems to go in only one direction - down. The state lost 21,000 positions in the past five years. More than 40,000 in the past decade. Nearly 70,000 in the past two decades. But advocates think employment decline - driven by technology, consolidation, closures and offshoring - isn't inevitable. The nonprofit Regional Manufacturing Institute of Maryland is trying to organize employers and local officials to get the sector growing again. First step: reminding local officials that manufacturing, which employs 111,000 in the state directly and more indirectly, is not dead.

Northrop Grumman Corp. says it is already having difficulty attracting bright, tech-savvy workers. The CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. told Congress this month that his company could have to lay off thousands of employees. They and other Maryland defense contractors are asking lawmakers for details on the so-called sequester — deep budget cuts, including $800 billion to defense spending, due to strike Jan. 2 because the congressional supercommittee failed last year to reach a deficit-reduction agreement.

Imagine my surprise to read in last weekend's Baltimore Sun that Maryland lost an astounding 11,000 jobs in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. How could this be possible since Gov.Martin O'Malleyis continually touting his superb economic and fiscal stewardship of our state? Meanwhile, it was the fourth straight month of job losses in Maryland, and only two states lost more jobs than Maryland during this period. Could these dismal numbers have anything to do with the governor's job-killing sales, corporate and income tax increases, not to mention a plethora of new regulations on virtually every sector of our economy?

The Carroll commissioners are working on a reorganization of county government that would, among other changes, create a separate Department of the Environment, officials said yesterday. The board also is expected to make recreation and parks its own department and to restructure the Office of Public Safety, which has been roundly criticized in recent months by volunteer firefighters. The changes, which officials are calling "a reconfiguration," will not cost the county any money, and they won't cost anyone his or her job, the officials said.

In a recent Sun article, "Labor officials bring minimum wage push to Baltimore" (May 14), a researcher from the labor union-supported Economic Policy Institute claims that the "majority of minimum-wage earners work for large companies in the retail, fast-food and hospitality sectors, not for small businesses. " This is not true: Two-thirds of lower-wage workers are at businesses with 100 or more employees, not "large companies. " These 100-employee businesses could just as well be a small restaurant franchisee with five locations or a regional grocery store chain with three locations.

Maryland shed 6,000 jobs in April, the federal government said Friday — the largest monthly loss in the country during a month when most states gained, but one that might have been overstated. The figures, which are preliminary and adjusted for seasonal variations, paint a much less rosy picture of Maryland employment than in recent months. As it released the April numbers, the U.S. Department of Labor said Friday that it also revised downward its estimate for March, showing Maryland losing 600 jobs rather than adding 1,500.