Maryland’s federal workforce just saw its largest single-month job loss since 1996, according to estimates released by the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Trump administration cuts threaten Maryland's federal workers
The state has shed 7% of its federal workforce in the last year.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics • Greg Morton/The Baltimore Banner
Overall, the state’s federal workforce declined by 3,500 in June — far and away the most in the country, a Banner analysis of BLS data released last week showed. The next-closest state, Virginia, lost 2,500 federal government workers. Maryland’s was the second-largest single-month decline in federal workers in any state in the country this year, also just behind Virginia, which lost 3,600 federal workers in March.
The losses, a mix of voluntary and involuntary departures, highlight the economic impacts of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce for a state where 1 in 10 workers is employed by the federal government.
The new data also underscores the accelerating pace of federal job losses since President Donald Trump took office in January and began to dismantle large swaths of the federal workforce. Maryland has lost 12,000 jobs, 7% of all federal government jobs in the state, since February. Maryland has lost more federal workers than any other state in the last 12 months, according to a Banner analysis of BLS data.
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Maryland lost more federal government jobs than any other state last month
The 3,500 lost jobs are the most in a month since 1996.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics • Greg Morton/The Baltimore Banner
Although the newly released data does not provide clarity into which agencies or communities have been most affected by the Trump administration’s cuts, a Banner analysis of data published in early July by the federal Office of Personnel Management shows retirements and voluntary departures at many agencies ballooned after Trump was elected again in November and in his first few months in office.
At the Department of Health and Human Services, home to more jobs than any other federal agency, according to a Banner analysis, the number of employees who quit reached a 12-month high the month after voters sent Trump back to the White House. In January, the number of employees who quit more than doubled from December to January.
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