Pulling for Victory
There are some good signs about the economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that employers in Maryland added 35,000 jobs in March – the most of any state.
To be sure, some of the increase simply reflects people going back to work after the devastating snowstorms of February which reduced employment that month by 13,000. Virginia and Pennsylvania, two other states hard hit by the snow reported similar large increases in March.
There seems to be a sort of consensus among those who claim to be experts that the recovery of the economy will continue at a somewhat quickening pace. The open questions, of course, are how fast will the economy grow and how much of the economic growth will generate growth in employment.
There are seven months, counting this one, until the general election. Sustained growth which consistently adds jobs in Maryland will certainly affect the election outcomes, boosting incumbents and hurting challengers. This is something to keep an eye on.
But it’s not just the number of jobs, but the quality of the jobs that counts. The construction and manufacturing sectors continue to have substantially fewer jobs than a year ago, while growth has a occurred primarily in the professional services, educational and health sectors. That won’t do a lot of good for workers who don’t have those kind of skills. We’ll have to watch this closely.
[The illustration is a poster for the United War Work Campaign from World War I]