Maryland?s unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in July from 4 percent in June, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The number of jobs in Maryland fell by 1,000.
Maryland?s unemployment rate has fared better than the national average, which reached 4.8 percent in July, according to the bureau.
Government employers led the job slowdown in Maryland with the bureau reporting the number of government jobs falling by 4,700 compared to July 2005.
Much hope is being placed on the Baltimore region?s job growth with an influx of new military jobs at Fort Meade and Aberdeen Proving Grounds, but those jobs won?t come until 2008, said Anibar Basu, CEO of the Sage Policy Group Inc. in Baltimore, an economic forecasting and research firm.
Basu blamed Maryland?s unemployment downturn on an overall slowing of the economy nationwide.
“The unemployment rate in Maryland has been rising the last few months,” Basu said. “It?s gone up eight-tenths of a percent in just the last three months.”
He added: “Consumers slowed their spending, business investing slowed, government spending slowed, imports slowed and the housing marking has been slowing which hurts the construction sector.”
Basu said the slowing economy and rising unemployment was not expected in the Baltimore and Maryland region just three months ago.
And the local economy may get worse before it gets better, Basu said.
“It is very much a function of how consumers behave in the third and fourth quarter of 2006. If consumers continue to pull back, business will follow suit, we will see a much softer economy in 2007,” he said.
