Good thing Maryland's businesses have begun hiring again — or at least stopped laying people off. The government-employment lifebuoy that has held Maryland's economy above water the past few years is about to spring a leak.

Federal stimulus money is about out. Elections and political excuses for postponing tough budget decisions in Annapolis and Washington are over.

Gov. Martin O'Malley is offering early-retirement buyouts to state employees in an attempt to avoid layoffs. He's talking about combining Maryland's two environmental agencies to save money.

Republicans claiming to be fiscal conservatives — they say this time they really mean it! — have taken control of the House of Representatives in D.C.

So don't expect federal, state and local governments to add 10,000 Maryland jobs this year, as they somehow did in 2010.

But if Maryland's private sector can continue the small surge that Labor Department figures suggest began last summer, the state's economy could deliver modest growth in 2011. That's a big if. Maryland businesses have underperformed in the hiring department for years.

Government employment and other government spending have kept Maryland from having nearly as severe a slump as many other states. Despite the worst national financial crisis in 80 years, federal, state and local government employment hit 501,000 in Maryland in November — an all-time high, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Part of the credit for federal employment last year went to temporary hiring for the decennial U.S. Census. But census employment had pretty much wound down by November.

The reasons for Maryland's government-job increase last year can be found in federal deficit spending, which created the money not only to staff U.S. agencies and continue waging two wars but to lavish Annapolis with stimulus money that kept state- and local-government employment stable.

The continuing movement of thousands of defense jobs to Maryland from Virginia and New Jersey as part of the Pentagon's base realignment process also boosted government jobs.

Thanks to government employment and spending, Maryland had a "better" recession than most states. From the economic peak in early 2008 to the bottom a year ago, Maryland lost 5 percent of its total number of jobs. The nation as a whole, on the other hand, saw employment fall by 6 percent. Employment has plunged in states such as Nevada and Michigan by more than one-tenth.

Like the nation, Maryland is slowly recovering its losses, adding 50,000 jobs, or 2 percent of total employment, since February. The results can be seen in the state's relatively low unemployment rate of 7.4 percent.

But now the government-spending prop is about to be pulled away. The question for Maryland is the same as for the country. Can businesses start hiring to fill the void and keep the economy from falling back into recession?

The answer so far is a cautious maybe. Nationwide, private employers have added 1.3 million jobs in the past year, or a little more than 1 percent. In November, the latest month for which state figures are available, Maryland had 22,000 more private-sector jobs than it did a year previously — a gain of 1 percent.

Some encouraging signs suggest this will continue. Sixty percent of the companies surveyed recently by the Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore said they expect increased revenue for 2011. Only 7 percent expected declines. Forty-one percent said they planned to add to employment this year.

The Maryland Survey of Business Activity published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond showed similar results, with half the companies contacted in October expecting "greater business activity" this year "while very few anticipate activity to decline," the survey said.

If business hiring continues it would represent a welcome return of symmetry to the Maryland economy. The state, which has no more private-sector jobs than it had in 2003, has relied on government spending and government jobs for too long.

It could happen. Indeed.com, an online job-search portal, shows Washington and Baltimore as the No. 2 and No. 3 metro areas in the nation in posted job openings per capita.

With Maryland local governments set to mimic state and federal agencies in downsizing or holding employment steady at best — look at the budget challenges faced by Baltimore City — it would be great to see companies turn those openings into hires and Maryland switch from government to good, old-fashioned business as a job engine.

Jay.hancock@baltsun.com