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The newspaper of The Johns Hopkins University July 7, 2008 | Vol. 37 No. 39
 
Nonprofit Jobs in Maryland Outpace Private Sector

Growth especially strong in the Washington and Baltimore suburbs

By Mimi Bilzor
Institute for Policy Studies

Nonprofits in Maryland are growing their workforces nearly three times faster than the state's for-profit sector, according to a recent Johns Hopkins study. Nonprofit organizations now provide 9.6 percent of all jobs in Maryland, well above the national average of 7.2 percent.

Employment in the state's nonprofit sector increased by 2.9 percent during 2006, the latest year for which such data are available. By comparison, employment in the state's business sector grew by only 1.1 percent. The 6,840 new nonprofit jobs brought the state's total nonprofit workforce to 244,086 jobs at the end of 2006.

"Not only do nonprofits provide critical services and opportunities for cultural expression, but they also play a key role in the state's economy," said Lester Salamon, director of the Center for Civil Society Studies within the university's Institute for Policy Studies and a leading expert on nonprofits. "In payroll alone, nonprofit employees earned more than $10.6 billion in 2006, generating significant tax revenue and other economic benefits for Maryland. Nonprofit job growth is especially critical given the recent employment declines in other parts of the U.S. economy."

Nancy Hall, senior adviser at the Maryland Association of Nonprofit Organizations, said, "This growth continues a long-term trend. Between 1999 and 2006, nonprofit employment in Maryland grew 20.5 percent--nearly three times the rate of for-profit jobs."

Additional findings of the report include the following:

♦ Nonprofit job growth was especially strong in the Washington, D.C., suburbs (3.8 percent) and Baltimore suburbs (3.1 percent). This reflects a continuing suburbanization of nonprofit jobs in the state, with nonprofits in the Washington and Baltimore suburbs employing well over half of all nonprofit workers in the state.

♦ On the Eastern Shore, nonprofits experienced 2.9 percent job growth, while jobs in the business sector declined by 0.4 percent.

♦ Nonprofit job growth also outpaced that of the business sector in Western Maryland (2.3 percent vs. 0.3 percent).

♦ Although nonprofit job growth in Baltimore City, at 1 percent, was well below the state average of 2.9 percent, it still outperformed employment in the city's for-profit sector, which declined 0.4 percent.

♦ The recent record of nonprofit job growth in Maryland continues a long-term trend with nonprofit employment in Maryland growing by 20.5 percent between 1999 and 2006, compared to 7.1 percent job growth in the business sector.

♦ Fields that experienced above-average nonprofit job growth include professional and scientific services (40 percent), social assistance (30 percent) and arts, entertainment and recreation (30 percent). While the hospital field experienced slightly lower than average job growth, nonprofit hospitals still added 14,449 net jobs over this seven-year period.

To view the entire report, Maryland Nonprofit Employment Update, which includes a county-by- county breakdown of nonprofit employment, go to www.jhu.edu/ccss.

The private nonprofit sector comprises private universities, schools, hospitals, clinics, day care centers, social service providers, symphonies, museums, art galleries, theaters, environmental organizations and many others. The report is part of the Nonprofit Economic Data Project at The Johns Hopkins University. The data in this report draw on reports filed by employers with the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, and cover the period through the end of 2006.

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