By Adam Pagnucco.
In Part One, we examined new estimates of total employment by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for Washington area jurisdictions in 2022. Now let’s look at private employment.
The chart below shows one-year growth by jurisdiction and for the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria region as a whole.
Every large jurisdiction in the region saw some private sector job growth, though Montgomery County’s growth was one of the lowest. Only Howard County had less private job growth last year.
Most jurisdictions here and elsewhere are still recovering from the pandemic recession. The chart below shows 2022 private employment as a percentage of the pre-pandemic employment in 2019.
While Loudoun and Prince William counties are the only large jurisdictions whose private jobs base has fully recovered from the pandemic, the regional numbers definitely favor Virginia over Maryland. Alexandria, perhaps the weakest economy in the area, is an outlier.
Now let’s look at the 15-year history of private employment. The base year, 2007, was the year before the Great Recession
Montgomery, Prince George’s and Alexandria are the only jurisdictions who have lost private sector jobs over the entire period. D.C. and most of Northern Virginia are up substantially even accounting for the steep, but quick, pandemic downturn.
In the next part of the series, we will look at number of establishments.