School bids and school contracting opportunities remain a strong source of business opportunity in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York (including NY City), Connecticut, Massachusetts, Florida and Maryland jobs.

BTBbids.com reports that government bids and government contracting jobs (especially those issued by school bids departments) are keeping their New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York (including NY City), Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland and Florida clients busy with new work opportunities throughout the holiday months.

Usually a slow-down period, the holiday months are proving busy for the many BTBbids.com clients that have contracted with the various schools in NJ, PA, DE, NY, CT, MA, MD and FL in the past. "Spending on educational supplies, products and services for the various school districts and boards of education (BOE's) translates directly into bid jobs and work opportunities for the millions of US businesses that contract with the school purchasing and procurement offices," says a company spokeswoman.

BTB plans to continue to fight the recent economic down-turn by continuing to provide up-to-date information about the school bids and school district contracting opportunities they compile and distribute every day. "Don't fear the recent economic news," suggests BTBbids.com CEO Kyle Yoder. "The United States is the greatest country in the world, and the ingenuity of the American entrepreneur will DEFINITELY get our economy back on track… in the meantime, the school districts contracting opportunities and government school bids arena is thriving and full of opportunities for businesses of all sizes and industries."

Labels: Maryland Jobs

While job losses in our country continue to rise, opportunities – including Maryland jobs – do still exist. According to a recent news release, the Maryland State Board of Education declared teacher shortages in 20 key subject areas, ranging from special education to secondary school math and science.

The State Board found teacher shortages cropping up in all of the state’s 24 school systems, and noted a lack of teachers who are male and teachers who are members of minority groups.

When classes began in Maryland school systems earlier this fall, teacher shortages were less pronounced than they had been in previous years. The positions that remained open were primarily in the hard-to-fill areas cited in the report.

“Special education, upper level math, physics—these positions have been difficult to fill since we began tracking this nearly 25 years ago,” noted Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick, Maryland State Superintendent of Schools. “But our school systems are doing a much better job of recruiting qualified teachers, and such innovations as our first statewide teacher job fair held last year have paid big dividends.”

There are needs that go well beyond the classroom. The State Board also declared a shortage of principals, library/media specialists, and speech/language pathologists for schools in the state. Maryland’s biennial Teacher Staffing Report, presented to the State Board this week, found that 7,249 new teachers were hired last year, down slightly from two years earlier.

Of the teachers hired in 2007, 4,003 were new teachers who had recently completed teacher training programs. Only 1,234 of them came from Maryland colleges and universities, down from a high of 1,769 in 2002-2003.

The percentage of minority new hires fell slightly from 30.5 percent in 2006 to 29.3 percent last year. At the same time, the percentage of teacher candidates at Maryland colleges and universities who are members of minority groups has been increasing steadily since 2002-2003, and now stands at 19.5 percent.

There is no sign that shortages will end anytime soon. There are currently only three teacher education candidates in physics scheduled to graduate from Maryland colleges next spring, down from 14 in 2006-2007. There are no candidates in computer science education or technology education.

The Maryland Teacher Staffing Report, which MSDE began publishing 24 years ago as the Maryland Teacher Supply and Demand Study, uses information from local school systems and Maryland higher education institutions with teacher preparation programs.

Labels: Maryland Jobs

Although Maryland’s jobless rate remains significantly below the national average of 5.5 percent, it climbed to the highest it’s been in the last 2 ½ years in May. In April only 3.6 percent of the state’s population was collecting unemployment benefits, but in May it increased to 4 percent. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the only state that did not experience at least a small rise in joblessness was Louisiana.

Despite rising unemployment, the area’s economy continued to fair better than elsewhere in the nation. Approximately 1,100 Maryland jobs were created in the month of May, according to preliminary statistics after seasonal adjustments. Andy Bauer, regional economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond’s Baltimore office, said this figure shows decent job growth.

Still, there were not enough jobs created to provide employment to the 13,000 people that entered the state’s workforce or to make up for the 2,6000 jobs lost in April. Bauer believes that the drastic increase in the number of individuals looking for employment was caused, in part, by a large group of college students entering the workforce. If this does not end up being the case then he believes something may have go wrong when the government adjusted the statistical information in hopes of accounting for seasonal changes. At this time, it is believed that May’s influx of jobseekers is the largest increase in the workforce in the last 12 years.

Either way, Bauer said that Maryland job growth and unemployment statistics remain positive when one considers that employers are currently challenged by the slump in the housing market, credit problems and high gas prices. “We’re a strong service state, and the service industries are still doing pretty good except for the finance industries related to the housing market,” he said.

Anirban Basu, chief executive of Baltimore economic and policy consulting firm Sage Policy Group, is less optimistic. “I would expect the nation’s unemployment rate to b e roughly 6 percent by year-end and that Maryland’s unemployment rate would be in the range of 4.5 to 5 percent.”

Overall the state’s employers created 26,800 new jobs during the last 12 months. The industry that was responsible for the largest gains in employment was education and health services, which generated 11,400 jobs. Other industries that were responsible for new positions included professional and business services, which added 9,400 jobs, and leisure and hospitality was responsible for 5,400 new positions.

Problems with the housing market and credit crisis caused financial activities employers eliminate 2,300 jobs in the last year. These issues also effected the construction industry, which cut 1,800 positions. Manufacturers did away the most jobs, cutting approximately 3,700 positions during the last 12 months.

Labels: DC Jobs, Maryland Jobs, Washington