Job Seekers

The economy added 103,000 jobs in December — less than expected. Unemployment did fall to 9.4 percent, largely because 260,000 adults dropped out of the labor force and are no longer counted as unemployed by the government. Clearly, our economy is nowhere near out of the woods. The president's $800 billion stimulus package gave the economy a lift, and additional tax cuts in 2011 will help too, but those did not address structural problems holding back jobs creation — and principal among those is the huge trade deficit.

Rob McGovern started the job search website CareerBuilder.com in 1994 when the Internet as we know it today was in its infancy. Five years later, at the height of the dot-com bubble, McGovern took the company public. It had monthly traffic of about 10 million job seekers at the time, he said. The following year CareerBuilder was sold to Tribune Co. (the parent company of The Baltimore Sun) and Knight Ridder in the first of what would be two transactions and an ultimate price tag of more than $500 million.

At a time when employers receive hundreds of applications for a single job opening, a glowing reference could be the difference between standing out and sitting at home. Enter CareerExcuse.com, a website that promises to "act as your past employer" and provide you with a positive reference. "You provide us with your name, employment dates, ending salary and job titles, we do the rest!!" the site pledges. Of course it's never OK to lie, and doing so can backfire. But some workers are desperate in what is the worst job market in more than a generation.

The names on the small campaign signs seem strangely unfamiliar: Reddish, Rappaport, Hartleb, MacFarlane, Dodd, Moore, Fitzgerald, McNeal. They are the people who want elective, though often obscure, courthouse jobs. But that doesn't mean they don't compete just as fiercely as candidates running for county executive or governor. There is no competition this year for the best-known courthouse job — incumbent Howard County State's Attorney Dario Broccolino, a Democrat, has no opponent — but other court officials face a wall of public indifference and ignorance about what they do. Worse, register of wills candidates were left off a few sample ballots mailed to some county voters, though replacements were provided.

Government hiring outweighed cuts in Maryland's private sector in September, but not enough to keep the state's unemployment rate from rising. The 4,800-job gain in Maryland estimated by the Labor Department Friday — an upturn after two months of losses — was outpaced by the number of people newly looking for work. Job seekers joining the fray helped push the unemployment rate to 7.5 percent in September, from 7.3 percent in August. Government agencies added 8,300 jobs in September, largely a result of hiring for local education, according to the estimates.

Your recent article "Help's on the way with career center" (Aug. 12)," highlights a great tool to help residents of Baltimore County to connect to employment opportunities. During these difficult economic times, a greater number of Baltimore area residents have found themselves out of work, through no fault of their own. As local companies have downsized or simply closed their doors, their former employees need to access resources to re-enter the workforce. In particular, the county's Mobile Career Center can help jobseekers access occupational training programs that can give them the skills they need to compete for jobs in areas of our local economy that hold promise for future career options.

Nothing is so heartening to job-seekers nowadays as word that thousands of openings are headed their way. That's the siren call of BRAC — the military base realignment and closure effort that's relocating jobs to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County, Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County and other installations in Maryland. About 12,000 jobs are moving to the two Baltimore-area bases between August and next summer, along with thousands more off-base contractor jobs. And they are coming as unemployment is still near generational highs.

Tucked under a public library computer keyboard was an anonymous note: "Thank you for helping me get a job." The paper scrap turned up at downtown Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library, where staff members say their 160 computers are enabling unemployed people to find jobs, do homework or manage their budgets. "From McDonald's to McDonnell Douglas, 85 percent of all hiring is done online," said Pratt CEO Carla D. Hayden. "In a city like Baltimore, where 30 percent of the population has no home computer access, we have found a new role."

Maryland's unemployment rate improved in April for the first time since the recession hit at the end of 2007, a turnaround that came as employers added jobs for the second straight month. The state's jobless rate, which had risen to a 27-year high of 7.7 percent this year, fell to 7.5 percent last month, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday. It estimated that Maryland businesses and agencies created 8,200 jobs in April. That comes on the heels of a huge gain in March — almost 29,000 jobs.

More than 200 Anne Arundel County residents have used services at the county's newest career center since it began operating less than two months ago, county officials said Wednesday. Kirkland J. Murray, president and CEO of the Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corp., said about two-thirds of those job seekers have found employment or been referred to job training programs. The center, Murray said at an open house Wednesday morning, is needed as the county, like communities everywhere, grapples with the recession.