The dip in unemployment registered by D.C. and Virginia in July, and the very slight increase in Maryland, does not necessarily signal a regional economic turnaround or an end to the recession, one expert economist said.
In D.C., the July jobless rate settled at 10.6 percent, down from 10.9 percent in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Friday. In Virginia, overall unemployment fell from 7.2 to 6.9 percent. In Maryland, the rate inched up from 7.2 to 7.3 percent. Seventeen states and the District saw their unemployment rates fall between June and July.
The data are nothing to celebrate, said Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis. A dip in unemployment is common as a recession endures and many job seekers simply abandon their searches.
“The drop can be all ascribed to people dropping out of the workforce,” Fuller said. “When you’re unemployed for so long — this is a trend that happens in a long downturn — as you get into the second year of unemployment, you stop looking. They quit.”
When the economy finally shows signs of life and the unemployed flood the job market in search of work, Fuller said, then the unemployment rate will go back up.
The District’s unemployment figure, and the fact that it experienced the largest one-month increase in overall employment in the nation, may also be deceiving.
The number of D.C.-based wage and salary jobs rose 20,700 in July, according to the Department of Employment Services. But DOES included in its labor force statistics the 19,200 kids it employed through the Summer Youth Employment Program, most of whom are back to school Monday and no longer receiving a paycheck from the city.
“It will go back up, but it’s no big deal,” Dyoncia Brown, DOES spokesman, said of the unemployment rate.
The District should not have included summer job hires — most are part-timers in their teens — in its employment statistics, Fuller said. Job numbers are “supposed to reflect the full-time, regular workforce,” he said.
“D.C. does things their own way,” Fuller said.
Maryland experienced a slight unemployment rise, but it also added 10,000 new jobs between June and July.
