‘Back to Normal’? Not Yet: 190,000 Marylanders Still out of Work

Maryland’s job market isn’t done recovering from the coronavirus recession, despite recent progress. Nearly 200,000 Maryland workers are still unemployed, meaning that they are actively seeking a job but unable to find one. Our economy’s continued weakness underscores the need to support struggling Marylanders rather than pull the rug out from under them. In this context, it’s good news that a court on July 3 temporarily blocked Gov. Hogan’s bid to prematurely cut off unemployment benefits for many out-of-work Marylanders. Benefits for unemployed workers—and our economy’s continued recovery—now depend on the outcome to a challenge of the decision’s legality.

Maryland’s Job Market Is Not Done Recovering

• 190,000 Maryland workers were unemployed in May (the most recent data available), meaning that they were actively looking for a job but unable to find one.
• Maryland’s unemployment rate stood at 6.1% (seasonally adjusted), down slightly from its level of 6.2% in February through April.
• May’s unemployment rate was 2.9 percentage points below its peak of 9.0% in spring 2020, and 2.6 percentage points above its average value of 3.5% in 2019. This means that we’ve recovered just over half (53%) of the ground lost last year.

Cutting Benefits Would Impose Needless Misery

Why aren’t more Marylanders currently employed? When asked, they give a wide range of reasons. As of mid-June, among Maryland adults who are neither employed nor retired:

• 17% are caring for children or aging relatives
• 16% have a disability or an illness other than COVID-19
• 15% lost their job because of the pandemic
• 6% are concerned about catching or spreading COVID-19
• 5% have COVID-19 symptoms or are caring for someone else with COVID-19 symptoms
• 1% Don’t have transportation to work
• 94% report that they want to be employed.

Who are Marylanders receiving unemployment benefits?

• 66% are caring for children (115,000 adults, plus their kids)
• 40% are 40 years old or older (76,000 adults)
• 56% are workers of color (98,000)
• 29% are Black (51,000)
• 22% are Latinx (38,000)
• 43% have attended some college or have a degree (76,000)

Marylanders who are relying on unemployment benefits to make ends meet continue to face serious hardship.

Scant Evidence of Worker Shortages

Despite a wave of anecdotes promoted by special interest groups and amplified by media, there is not meaningful evidence that a lack of workers is holding back our economy.

In March 2021—the most recent month for which data exist—there were 193,000 unemployed Marylanders and 200,000 job openings. This means that there were 103 job openings for every 100 unemployed workers, essentially an even balance. Maryland’s labor market last passed this milestone in April 2018—and then kept growing for 20 straight months. In 2019, there were an average of 123 job postings per 100 unemployed workers. Even factoring in job growth that has occurred since March, it is clear that Maryland’s labor market has plenty of room to expand.

It is possible to estimate how many people businesses would like to employ by adding together the number of employed workers in Maryland and the number of job openings. In 2019, the sum of employment and job openings in Maryland averaged 3.30 million. As of March 2021, that number was only 3.12 million—lower than at any point in 2017, 2018, or 2019. Even if employers instantly filled every current job opening, we would still be 179,000 jobs short of where we were in 2019.