Total nonfarm employment for the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area stood at 1,379,100 in March 2016, up 35,500, or 2.6 percent, over the year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. During the same period, the national job count increased 2.0 percent. Sheila Watkins, the Bureau’s regional commissioner, noted that the Baltimore area has had over-the-year job gains each month since April 2010. (See chart 1 and table 1; the Technical Note at the end of this release contains the metropolitan area definition. All data in this release are not seasonally adjusted; accordingly, over-the-year analysis is used throughout.)

Industry employment

Professional and business services had the largest annual job gain among Baltimore’s supersectors, adding 13,200 jobs since March 2015. The 6.0-percent local rate of job growth was nearly double the national rate of 3.1 percent. (See chart 2.)

Employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 6,000 in the local area since March a year ago. The rate of local job growth for this supersector (4.7 percent) was greater than the national rate (3.2 percent).

Three other supersectors—education and health services; mining, logging, and construction; and trade, transportation, and utilities—gained more than 3,000 jobs each in the Baltimore area from March 2015 to March 2016. The rates of local job growth for education and health services (2.2 percent) and trade, transportation, and utilities (1.5 percent) lagged those for the nation.

In the Baltimore area, government employment declined by 1,000 from March 2015 to March 2016. The decline was centered in Baltimore City, which lost 1,600 public sector jobs over the year. The local rate of decline for government employment was 0.4 percent; nationally, government employment was up 0.5 percent.

Metropolitan area employment data for April 2016 are scheduled to be released on Friday, May 20, 2016, at 10:00 a.m. (ET).

Technical Note

This release presents nonfarm payroll employment estimates from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program. The CES survey is a Federal-State cooperative endeavor between State employment security agencies and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Definitions. Employment data refer to persons on establishment payrolls who receive pay for any part of the pay period which includes the 12th of the month. Persons are counted at their place of work rather than at their place of residence; those appearing on more than one payroll are counted on each payroll. Industries are classified on the basis of their principal activity in accordance with the 2012 version of the North American Industry Classification System.

Method of estimation. The employment data are estimated using a "link relative" technique in which a ratio (link relative) of current-month employment to that of the previous month is computed from a sample of establishments reporting for both months. The estimates of employment for the current month are obtained by multiplying the estimates for the previous month by these ratios. Small-domain models are used as the official estimators for approximately 39 percent of CES published series which have insufficient sample for direct sample-based estimates.

Annual revisions. Employment estimates are adjusted annually to a complete count of jobs, called benchmarks, derived principally from tax reports which are submitted by employers who are covered under state unemployment insurance (UI) laws. The benchmark information is used to adjust the monthly estimates between the new benchmark and the preceding one and also to establish the level of employment for the new benchmark month. Thus, the benchmarking process establishes the level of employment, and the sample is used to measure the month-to-month changes in the level for the subsequent months.

Reliability of the estimates. The estimates presented in this release are based on sample survey and administrative data and thus are subject to sampling and other types of errors. Sampling error is a measure of sampling variability—that is, variation that occurs by chance because a sample rather than the entire population is surveyed. Survey data are also subject to nonsampling errors, such as those which can be introduced into the data collection and processing operations. Estimates not directly derived from sample surveys are subject to additional errors resulting from the special estimation processes used. The sums of individual items may not always equal the totals shown in the same tables because of rounding.

Employment estimates. Measures of sampling error for state CES data at the supersector level are available on the BLS Web site at www.bls.gov/sae/additional-resources/reliability-of-state-and-area-estimates.htm. Information on recent benchmark revisions for states is available at www.bls.gov/sae/.

Area definitions. The substate area data published in this release reflect the delineations issued by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget on February 28, 2013. A detailed list of the geographic definitions is available at www.bls.gov/lau/lausmsa.htm.

The Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, Md. Metropolitan Statistical Area includes Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, Howard, and Queen Anne’s Counties and Baltimore City in Maryland.

Additional information

More complete information on the technical procedures used to develop these estimates and additional data appear in Employment and Earnings, which is available online at www.bls.gov/opub/ee/home.htm. Industry employment data for states and metropolitan areas from the Current Employment Statistics program are also available in the above mentioned news releases and from the Internet at www.bls.gov/sae/.

Information in this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200; Federal Relay Service: (800) 877-8339.