Foreclosure house listings grew in Maryland in 2009 as the state experienced its highest rate of unemployment in ten years, based on employment data from the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
The jobless rate in Maryland rose to 7.5 percent in December from the November rate of 7.3 percent. It was higher than the jobless rate in nearby Virginia, which was 6.9 percent. As the rates in Maryland and Virginia increased, the jobless rate in Washington, D.C. soared to 11.8 percent, its highest level since 1976.
According to state officials, Maryland lost a lot of jobs in the manufacturing and construction sectors, which posted an 18.4-percent job loss, and in the real estate leasing sector, which posted a 9.7-percent job loss.
Andy Moser of the Maryland Labor Department said that the manufacturing industry is becoming more technology-based as opposed to mechanically-based, requiring workers to get retraining for technology jobs.
It was only in the health care, education and federal government sectors where jobs were created and more people got employed.
Last year, the pace of foreclosure house listings in Maryland stepped up by 33.7 percent, with a total of 43,248 delinquency and repossession filings. The previous year, only 32,347 households were put into distressed status. With the 2009 foreclosures representing 1.9 percent of all residential units in Maryland, the state was 13th among U.S. states with the highest rates of foreclosure.
State officials in Maryland are getting concerned because foreclosures continued to increase month-over-month, indicating the large number of households with unemployed breadwinners. An increasing number of prime mortgages – those with fixed rates, taken with complete financial documents and involved responsible and income-earning borrowers – have been defaulting.
According to Maryland Labor Secretary Alexander Sanchez, about 8,700 jobs were eliminated by employers in December, mostly in real estate, construction, retail trade and accommodation companies.
To help create jobs, Governor Martin O’Malley backed a legislation package that included a bill granting a $3,000 job creation tax credit for each person hired from the state’s unemployment lists. The package also included a bill that would expand current loan guarantee programs for small businesses and would provide $83 million to assist employers pay their unemployment insurance premiums.
Sanchez also advised unemployed Maryland residents to visit One-Stop Career centers and distressed borrowers whose homes are entering foreclosure house listings to approach accredited foreclosure prevention counselors and housing nonprofits to save their homes.
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