Labor Market

A strong surge in the service sector dropped Maryland's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from 4.8 percent in February to 4.6 percent in March, the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation reported yesterday.According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, this would be Maryland's lowest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate since before the recession in the early 1990s. However, a state spokeswoman said the way that unemployment rates were calculated then are different from now, so she could not confirm that Maryland's unemployment rate was at a multiyear low in March.

IF YOU FEEL like you're inundated by economic statistics, you're right.Economists say hundreds, perhaps thousands, of major and minor economic indicators are spewed out regularly.There's the GDP, PPI, CPI and ECI. There are stats on worker productivity, worker inactivity and worker spending proclivity.Want to know what Alan Greenspan is thinking? Check the Briefcase Index. (It's good news if the Federal Reserve chairman carries a thin briefcase into a policy meeting; bad news if it's thick.

SINCE MY thoughts often turn to foreign adventure when I shop at Banana Republic, during my last visit there I decided to take an imaginary voyage by reading the "Made in" labels stitched on the garments.It was quite a trip -- China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, the Philippines, India, Honduras, Thailand, Korea, Macau and someplace called "Northern Mariana Island" (the Northern Marina Islands, perhaps?).Soon I fell into a pleasant daydream: I was lying the arms of a bewitching maiden of the Orient as we feasted on shrimp with their heads still on and other exotic things.

Borrowers overwhelmed by private student loan debt often discover an ugly truth too late — these loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy like other types of consumer loans. A new report on private student loans by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Department of Education suggests it may be time to change that. The agencies say these loans offer so little flexibility to struggling borrowers that Congress might consider revising the bankruptcy law given today's tough economy.

Kansas City, Missouri.--More often than not, Americans meeting each other for the first time begin conversation by saying, ''What do you do?''It means, of course, what is your job, your work, your title, your identity? What do you answer if you have no work? How do you live without work?I don't mean that only as an economic question. For Americans, it is a psychological question, even a spiritual question. In a nation that sees itself as the embodiment of the work ethic, are there ethics at all for those without work?

NEW YORK -- Watch out, America. Age diversity is the next business issue that's destined to grab headlines and become a major topic of discussion.Labor Department statistics confirm the obvious: The economy is booming. More than 300,000 jobs were created in February -- the fourth month in a row that's happened.Unemployment dropped to 4.6 percent, the lowest since the early 1970s, and it's far lower in places such as Nebraska, where only 1.6 percent of workers are without jobs. (In large urban areas, unemployment rates continue to be higher for a myriad of reasons.

Sudesna Batajoo had resigned herself to another summer job in retail sales. The 20-year-old rising Loyola University junior faced one of the worst job markets in decades and feared she would never get an internship related to her business major, much less one that paid. But then came the unexpected: three offers. After sharply scaling back during the recession, many companies are again expanding internship programs. Both employers and university career centers are seeing stronger demand for interns this year.

The increase in jobs highlighted in the nation's most recent unemployment report carried the sound of economic promise, but Obama administration officials warned on Sunday that the public shouldn't expect any dramatic improvement in the jobless rate, largely because of the effect of thousands of "discouraged" unemployed people who have resumed their search for work. Some economists assert that the unemployment rate, which held steady at 9.7 percent in March, is likely to be driven higher as many more such people are lured into looking for work by hopeful signs of recovery.

With the opening of more than a half-dozen restaurants in the Inner Harbor, bringing hundreds of jobs, at least some managers say they are scrambling to find employees to meet the demand."