Virginia continues to crush Maryland in job creation

The economic development outlook remains bleak on this side of the Potomac River, as Virginia absolutely crushed Maryland in job creation last month. Just eight days after CNBC declared Virginia "America's Top State for Business," the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the state added 15,000 new jobs in June. That gave Virginia the third-highest job creation number out of all fifty states last month. By comparison, Maryland barely surpassed a third of that total, generating only 5,600 new jobs in June.

Maryland's unemployment rate rose to 2.8% in June, while Virginia's dropped to 2.7%. The biggest area of job growth in Maryland was in the government sector. In contrast, Virginia's largest job growth was in the private sector, in Professional and Business Services. While Maryland has only added 27,800 jobs total since January 1, Virginia was able to add more than half of that in the last month alone.

Montgomery County used to be a major engine of economic growth not only in Maryland, but in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region. It has now ceded that role to Northern Virginia, as MoCo increasingly becomes the bedroom community for workers who are employed elsewhere in the region. In fact, a new Bethesda-to-Tysons express bus has just been proposed to serve those workers commuting to Virginia in the morning. Tysons - and Northern Virginia as a whole - continue to add major corporate headquarters, while Montgomery County hasn't added a single one in over a quarter century.

It's that high-wage job growth that allowed Virginia’s general fund revenues to end fiscal year 2024 $1.2 billion over the official revenue forecast. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin cited "robust job growth" as the driver of that better-than-expected revenue.

In contrast, Montgomery County remains focused on the revenue-sapping activity of adding bedrooms, instead of boardrooms. Aside from presiding over a strong biotech sector that was created by wiser leaders years before they ever took office, MoCo's elected officials continue to put all of their economic development eggs into the residential housing construction basket.

Instead of building a new Potomac River crossing to Dulles International Airport, completing our master plan highway system, creating shovel-ready job sites, and focusing on attracting Fortune 500 companies and aerospace and defense firms to vacant office parks from Clarksburg to Bethesda to White Oak, our County Council is focused on building more luxury apartments and townhomes.

Montgomery County Council President Andrew Friedson told an audience of real estate developers hosted by Bisnow on July 18 that “[i]n Montgomery County, we’re really trying to change the narrative. We have to view housing as the economic infrastructure that we have to build communities.” That's definitely not the narrative guiding Northern Virginia, Texas, or California. We're in real trouble, folks.