Jobs In Baltimore

In a reorganization of its U.S. commercial insurance businesses, Zurich Financial Services Group could lay off as many as 850 employees -- including an unspecified number in Baltimore -- a top company official said yesterday.Frank A. Patalano, chief executive of the newly created subsidiary Zurich Services, also said Baltimore is no longer the headquarters for the Swiss company's commercial and small business insurance operations, which will be directed from Schaumburg, Ill. The Baltimore and Schaumburg operations have been folded into another newly created subsidiary, Zurich U.S.Patalano, who works out of Schaumburg and has run the Baltimore operations since Dec. 1, said the company expects to save $80 million to $100 million over the next two years by consolidating redundant operations and cutting costs.

As he traveled through Baltimore to promote his jobs agenda on Friday, President Barack Obama found himself sitting near a 29-year-old man who was uncertain how to reset his life after being released from prison two years ago. In one of the few spontaneous moments of the president's visit, Marcus Dixon - father of two boys - told Obama how he connected in 2011 with a workforce development group called the Center for Urban Families, put his life...

Data is still emerging to prove that the 1980s was a decade of economic growth and prosperity, and Maryland was among the bellwether states.Two reports released yesterday -- one focusing on employment trends and the other on salaries -- portrayed a healthy Maryland economy despite a shift in the types of jobs state residents held.The Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday ranked Maryland sixth among states with the highest increase in average annual salaries between 1989 and 1990. The average Maryland worker's salary rose from $23,469 in 1989 to $24,730 in 1990, an increase of 5.4 percent.

President Barack Obama told several hundred people gathered at a Baltimore manufacturing plant on Friday that he would keep his administration focused on the economic recovery -- despite a series of political scandals that have rocked the administration in recent days. Obama spoke at Ellicott Dredges in broad terms about lifting the middle class by investing in infrastructure. He pressed lawmakers on Capitol Hill to work together despite partisan gridlock that has stymied progress on economic initiatives proposed by either party, but he offered little in the way of new ideas to address unemployment.  The president spoke to about 800 people at Ellicott Dredges at an event that drew most of the state's elected leaders, including Gov. Martin O'Malley, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and most of the state's congressional delegation.

Donald Allan Goldman, a Baltimore businessman and former Holiday Spas executive, died of cancer Sunday at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 71, and a resident of Phoenix in Baltimore County. Mr. Goldman was born in Baltimore and raised on Eastern Avenue. He attended City College and served in the Army from 1953 to 1955 in Puerto Rico. He held several sales jobs in Baltimore before joining Holiday Spas, where he was executive vice president from 1967 until retiring in 1991. That year, he purchased Calvert Discount Liquors, a well-known Cockeysville wine shop, which he operated until selling the business in 2002.

Frederick Malcolm Ray, who led choirs and played the organ at churches across the region, died July 6 of Alzheimer's disease at Arden Courts, a care facility in Pikesville. The former Social Security Administration employee and chaplain's assistant in the Navy was 87. Mr. Ray was born the 11th of 13 children in Carthage, N.C. World War II interrupted his undergraduate studies at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C. After serving in the States, he earned a bachelor's degree in sociology in 1952 from what was then Morgan State College and in 1973, a professional certificate in social work from the University of Maryland.

BD Biosciences formally ushers in a new $6.5 million plant that is adding more than 100 jobs in Baltimore County with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday. The company, a division of Franklin Lakes, N.J.-based BD Inc., formerly known as Becton Dickinson, built the plant in Sparks after its purchase of a rival company, Detroit-based Difco Laboratories Inc., in 1997. BD closed four Difco plants in the Midwest. Michael M. Meehan, vice president and general manager of BD Biosciences, said the company decided to consolidate production here for several reasons: The company manufactures other health care products in Sparks and Hunt Valley; the large number of universities in the area provide a steady stream of employees; and the location is near the port of Baltimore -- an important consideration since 45 percent of the products are shipped overseas.

IT WOULD BE great to create 12,000 jobs in Baltimore and Maryland -- and add $400 million to state and city treasuries. But at what cost? That is the crucial question the Greater Baltimore ++ Committee failed to answer in its recent report on casino gambling.Two years ago, the Tydings Commission studied this same issue in depth. It was handed divergent reports showing casinos could generate as many as 20,000 jobs or lead to the loss of as many as 12,000 jobs at restaurants, bars and race tracks.

Edith Johns felt lucky that she rarely got sick and never faced big medical expenses. But in August, while running to catch a bus in Baltimore, she tripped and broke her foot. Her doctor bills came to more than $1,000. Johns, 55, has been without full-time work since December, when she said she was laid off after four years as a file clerk at Russel Motor Cars in Catonsville. Since then she has been without medical insurance. "After you lose your job, they sent me something about COBRA," health insurance for the unemployed, she said.

Employment in Baltimore, touted as one of the nation's few reviving cities in the 1980s, has dropped to its lowest level in more than a decade, as the recession wiped out nearly 29,000 jobs last year.In a gloomy assessment of the recession's impact throughout the state, the U.S. Department of Labor found that the number of jobs in Baltimore dropped more than the rest of the state, and that the state's employment level shrank more than any state in the region."Maryland probably got smacked with a double whammy," said Mark Wasserman, secretary of the state's Department of Economic and Employment Development.

The specter of federal budget reductions has meant hundreds of jobs lost at Northrop Grumman Corp. in Maryland, but as the defense contractor vies to build a key Navy radar system, that same cost-cutting pressure could boost the importance of Northrop's Baltimore-area operations, company leaders said. The company, along with rivals Raytheon Corp. and Lockheed Martin Corp., is a finalist for what could be a $16 billion program to supply the next-generation radar system for Navy surface ships.

There is no question Baltimore City schools need financial help to renovate aging buildings, but one aspect of the plan to finance this massive renovation project misses the mark and will have a devastating impact on hard-working businesses and families in the city. The proposed plan, known as the "bottle tax," would increase the current 2-cent tax on beverage containers to 5 cents for city residents when they purchase soft drinks, iced teas, water and juices from their local grocery stores.

This week, we asked about your dream professions in the city. Here's what you had to say. ••••  Orioles team therapist.  --L inard Gibson  via Facebook ••••  Business owner. Either helping others or baking. Maybe both.  -- hamptongirl  via Twitter ••••  Crabcake taste-tester.  --K elly Mitchell  via Facebook ••••  Owning a design studio.  -- rastheboho  via Twitter ••••  Fully legal weed farmer!

Northrop Grumman Corp. said Tuesday that it is cutting about 500 jobs in the Baltimore region — through buyouts and 70 layoffs — as a result of defense spending slowdowns and international economic pressures. The local layoffs account for half the 140 employees nationwide notified Tuesday that their jobs will end May 31. They are primarily engineers and manufacturing workers in the defense contractor's electronic systems sector, which has headquarters in Linthicum as well as locations in other states.

An employment fair for seniors in Baltimore County on Thursday drew several hundred job seekers, many of them recently laid off after years with the same company. Most were in their 50s and early 60s, too young for Social Security benefits and still critically in need of work. "I absolutely am looking for a job," said Kathy Metcalf of Catonsville, a human resources worker who was laid off a year ago after 24 years on the job. "I may be an aging baby boomer, but I still have a son in college."

Edith Johns felt lucky that she rarely got sick and never faced big medical expenses. But in August, while running to catch a bus in Baltimore, she tripped and broke her foot. Her doctor bills came to more than $1,000. Johns, 55, has been without full-time work since December, when she said she was laid off after four years as a file clerk at Russel Motor Cars in Catonsville. Since then she has been without medical insurance. "After you lose your job, they sent me something about COBRA," health insurance for the unemployed, she said.

ICC to take southern path The Intercounty Connector linking Gaithersburg to Interstate 95 will be built along a southerly route that state and local officials have backed for decades, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. announced. Federal officials have warned of environmental disruption. Housing average tops $300,000 The average price of a house in the Baltimore area raced across the $300,000 mark for the first time last month. The average price hit $309,090 last month, a jump of more than 17 percent compared with last year.

Bell Atlantic Corp. yesterday announced as expected that it will expand jobs in Baltimore, adding 132 positions within six months as the company continues to re-engineer itself to meet upcoming competition in the local telephone service business.The move, formally unveiled at a news conference, follows last year's decision to move 600 workers to 1 East Pratt St. and will bring the total number of jobs at the downtown headquarters to 1,416, Bell Atlantic spokesman Michel Daley said.Even when Bell Atlantic was organized differently and included a Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland unit more autonomous than today's Bell Atlantic-Maryland, the Pratt Street building never housed more than 800 people, Daley said.