Maryland Creates 36,000 New Jobs In 2013

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Positive news on the Maryland job front. The U.S. Department of Labor has released the annual job report for 2013.

Political reporter Pat Warren has the numbers.

Governor Martin O'Malley chose Domino Sugar to announce the Department of Labor job statistics.

"The battle is the same in every state in the union and that is to create more jobs, to create a middle class that is actually growing again and to rebuild our economy with a human purpose," said O'Malley.

Maryland employers created 7,300 new jobs in December, giving Maryland a year-end total of 36,000 new jobs--the highest level of annual job creation since 2004.

"There are hundreds and hundreds of jobs here at Domino, but there are also hundreds more that are part of this ripple effect, so you're standing actually...in the sweet spot of the Baltimore economy," he said.

Statewide, Maryland is home to the nation's second highest concentration of STEM jobs--that's science, technology, engineering, and math employees--and has one of the fastest STEM growth rates in the country.

Still, Baltimore resident Kathy Biscotti was one of 190,000 Marylanders who couldn't find work last month.

"I wake up in a complete panic of what is going to become of me," she said.

"I think we all understand that, while our economy is doing better than it was, there's still something very wrong when our middle class and middle class families are working harder and harder and yet falling further behind," O'Malley said.

Maryland is one of 30 states that gained jobs in December, climbing out of the recession.

According to the administration, Maryland has regained over 100 percent of the jobs lost.

The Department of Labor estimates that 1,900 of the 36,000 jobs created in Maryland last year were government jobs.

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