Maryland employers added jobs for the fourth straight month in June but did so at a fraction of the pace of the previous three, creating 1,600 new positions.

Even so, the state's employment picture was better than most in a difficult month for a large part of the nation, according to figures released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Labor. Twenty-seven states — more than half — recorded losses as tens of thousands of temporary census jobs came to an end.

In Maryland, nearly all the jobs added last month were created by the private sector. The estimates, which are preliminary, were adjusted to try to account for seasonal changes in hiring and layoffs.

Four months of gains in Maryland offer some relief for job seekers after sharp losses. That momentum lifted the state in June to the first year-over-year increase in jobs since May 2008. But other economic signals are less positive.

The increase in jobs was far smaller than in March, April or May, each of which topped 10,000. And a reduction in the state's unemployment rate — to 7.1 percent in June from 7.3 percent in May — was driven entirely by residents dropping out of the labor force. That's a common sign of job-search discouragement.

"Businesses are still concerned about their bottom line, so they're reluctant to hire workers," said Andy Bauer, a regional economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's Baltimore office.

Bauer expects decent economic growth the rest of the year, though, and he said he thinks employers' "wait-and-see attitude" will diminish as a result. He's already sensing local optimism: His office's June survey of Maryland businesses found 36 percent planning to add jobs in the next six months, compared with 18 percent planning to cut.

"While they may not be hiring a lot of people yet, they're sensing that Maryland's economy is turning around," said Kathleen T. Snyder, president and chief executive of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce.

One reason businesses offer to Snyder is that growth related to the military base realignment and closure process — BRAC — is scheduled to shift into high gear soon in the Baltimore area.

But Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research, sees "very weak growth" ahead for the nation. Any job creation in that environment wouldn't be enough to keep up with population growth, let alone to make a dent in the huge number of unemployed people. He doubts that Maryland will be immune to that trend.

"I don't know anyone who really sees the unemployment rate coming down to any significant extent through 2010 and 2011," he said.

On a related note, a vote Tuesday in the U.S. Senate all but ensured the reinstatement of extended benefits for millions of Americans dealing with long-term unemployment, a program that expired in June.

The program had provided 47 additional weeks of benefits for Marylanders who had exhausted their 26 weeks of state assistance. Its resumption would help more than 19,000 people in the state. Some weren't able to begin collecting extended benefits before the federal program lapsed, while others weren't able to finish, according to the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

The agency says it could quickly reactivate federal benefits for people who had already started collecting. But those who never got the federally funded checks will face a wait. The state, which has taken nearly 7,200 paper claims from people in that group to prepare for a possible extension, says it will need time to process them all.

"We anticipate it may take three to four weeks to get all of those claims inputted and paid," said Bernie Kohn, a spokesman for the state labor department. "It's just a lot of forms."

With more than 210,000 Marylanders out of work and actively looking for a job, economic themes are playing a key role in the state's tight gubernatorial election.

Gov. Martin O'Malley, a Democrat running for re-election, said in an interview Tuesday that signals of a jobs slowdown in June are too preliminary to declare a trend. He said he was heartened to see that Maryland's job creation between January and June was the highest since 1996.

"The recovery is still fragile and we still have a lot of work to do, but I think these are some of the most promising numbers we've seen," he said.

A spokesman for his Republican predecessor and opponent, former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., sees it differently.

"Bob Ehrlich finds it unacceptable to have 211,000 Marylanders who want to work unable to find a job," said Andy Barth, his press secretary. The path to faster job creation, he said, "is lower taxes and a more business-friendly government."

jamie.smith.hopkins@baltsun.com

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