ECONOMY

Maryland is strategically located for trade on the Eastern seaboard. It borders the District of Columbia, the nation's capital, to the south and is within hours by land of New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh.

Nearly 90 percent of the State's population (5.1 million in 1997) resides within the Washington-Baltimore Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA), the fourth largest retail trades sector in the country. Maryland has three foreign trade zones, 32 State Enterprise Zones, and a Federal Empowerment Zone. Major transportation hubs include the Port of Baltimore, the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, and several arterial interstate highways.

Maryland's workforce is the best educated among all states. A third of its population aged 25 or older holds a bachelors degree or higher. More than 135,400 businesses employ 1.77 million workers who earn an annual payroll of $51 billion. Some 2,760 of these businesses employ 100 or more workers. Of private sector employees, 8.1 percent are union members.

Most Marylanders - 86 percent - work in the widely defined service-producing sector. This category ranges from government positions to transportation-related professions, from wholesale trade to the finance and insurance industry. Service careers top out this list with 32 percent of the workforce ministering to the health, legal and education fields. One in five residents work in retail trade or for the government. Major employers also include Bethlehem Steel, Computer Sciences Corp., General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Marriott, McCormick & Co., and Northrop Grumman.

Manufacturing in Maryland is led by the chemical industry which produces some $17 million (value-added) of goods, followed by the food and kindred industry ($2.6 million), and the publishing industry. State exports total approximately $5.8 billion worth of mostly transportation equipment and industrial machinery.

Recent economic trends show a rebound from an economic recession that peaked in the early 1990s. Factors that caused the glut included reduced federal spending on defense, less government sub-contract work, and a 16.8% reduction since 1992 of federal workers employed in Washington, DC, many of whom reside in Maryland. Throughout this time, Maryland has retained its AAA bond rating.

Per-capita personal income grew 5.0% in 1997 and ranked 6th in the nation at $28,671 per year. The average weekly wage for combined total employment in Maryland was $611 in 1997. Most Marylanders, who work in the service or retail trades, earned an average weekly paycheck of between $328 and $595. The unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in 1997.

In 1997, Maryland's economy enjoyed its best growth in ten years with an increase of 73,000 full- and part-time jobs from 1996, an increase of 2.6%. The increase exceeds the State's three-year average gain of 49,450 jobs per year and is above the national growth rate of 2.5% for annual job growth.

Federal agencies located in Maryland such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center, and Department of Defense operations have been a catalyst for the State's technology base. Advanced technology enterprise is especially strong in telecommunications, computer sciences, and biotechnology.

Research parks facilitate joint research among universities, State and federal government institutions, and private industry. These parks include: The Johns Hopkins Bayview Campus in Baltimore (life sciences research) and Shady Grove Life Sciences Center in Montgomery County (biomedical and life sciences research) which holds the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology, part of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute. Other members of the Institute are the Center of Marine Biotechnology, the Medical Biotechnology Center, the Center for Agricultural Biotechnology, and the Maryland Sea Grant College. Also significant are the Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, both affiliated with The Johns Hopkins University. University of Maryland Baltimore County Research Park (life sciences & high technology research) on the Catonsville campus has completed its first phase of construction.

Sources for this data and additional information about Maryland's economy are available from the Department of Business and Economic Development, and the Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation. Socio-economic data about Maryland may be found through Planning Data Services, Office of Planning. Regional economic data may be found at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Information about Smart Growth, Maryland's plan to revitalize older developed areas and discourage sprawling development into the state's rural areas, may be found through the Office of Planning.

Source: Department of Labor, Licensing, & Regulation

Maryland at a Glance

Maryland Manual On-Line