By the Numbers; Making Baltimore Work; After a Long Slide, Employment Rates Have Turned Up
The first thing is to keep wishing really hard that the energized U.S. economy keeps on going and going and going.</br></br>Baltimore, for example, began a long downward slide in 1990 that was accelerated by a devastating recession that infected its manufacturing, real estate and financial services industries.</br></br>But now, the nation's recovery has gone on long enough that its benefits have spread even to hard-hit urban cores like Baltimore's, or the District's.</br></br>Employment in Baltimore peaked at 470,900 in March of 1980. Eight years later, it had plunged to around 395,000, or a net loss of more than 75,000 jobs, based on monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. The job shrinkage continued even after the U.S. and Maryland economies turned upward as the city's rising crime and drug problems and deteriorating schools chased families and employers away.</br></br>But in the past year, Baltimore has enjoyed a small renaissance. Employment in the last three months of 1999 averaged around 417,000-- a gain of more than 4 percent from the previous year's low point.