Lag-yland?
Happy Thursday, Baltimore. The weather probably shouldn't be this warm in January, but we hope you're enjoying it regardless.
One thing I see come up a bit in our coverage and my conversations with all of you is the sense of optimism that people have about the economic opportunity here. And not just in Baltimore, but around it, and throughout other parts of the state of Maryland. Some of that optimism leans on our strong core industries like cybersecurity and defense tech, while other parts of it focus on our proximity to federal resources, top-flight educational institutions and other assets that supposedly make this a fantastic place to work.
And yet, apparently, the Free State is falling behind others when it comes to pandemic job loss recovery. A Federal Reserve Bank regional economist told the Baltimore Business Journal that Maryland, unlike the US as a whole, has not replaced all the jobs it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Granted, the lag disproportionately rests on the populous DC-area suburbs (31,000 of the 50,000 jobs that Maryland didn't recover), while Greater Baltimore is doing better at just 7,500 fewer jobs than in December 2020.
Still, this doesn't necessarily bode well for a state that has enough economic resources and wealth that it should be leading the country's recovery, not falling behind it.
How do you feel about these numbers? What could or should be done to combat the lag? Are the analysts making a mountain out of a molehill? Let us know by emailing baltimore@technical.ly.
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