DLLR says the county will have the fastest growth rate in Md. through 2024.
Frederick, Md (KM). Employment growth is expected to continue in Frederick County in the near future. During her public information briefing on Thursday morning, County Executive Jan Gardner said figures released by the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation say that the county is expected to have the fastest job growth rate in the state between now and 2024.
“According to the agency’s calculations, Frederick County can expect to see a 9.2% employment growth through the year 2024. And that translates into about 9400 new jobs,”: Gardner said.
She said the biggest growth will continue to be in health care and education, along with the corporate management industry. “But I was most pleased to see information industry to be one of the fastest growing job sectors in Frederick County. These are your internet services providers, web and data processing services. And it’s important to note that I.T. firms support just about everything everybody else is doing in the entire economy no matter what their business,” says Gardner.
“So when you look at specific occupations, the computer and math fields are projected to grow in Frederick County. Computer system analysts and software developers will be needed to take us into the future,” says Gardner. “We expect there to be an app for just about everything we need. So it makes sense that application software development would be a growth area.”
In her comments, Gardner said the county is preparing for this job growth by renovating a building in downtown Frederick for a second business incubator known as “Root.”. “Right now, as we speak, crews from our Public Works Division are renovating a county-owned building in downtown Frederick. It’s at 118 North Market Street that will house a second business incubator focused on start I.T. and tech businesses. Again, this is where the job growth is going to be.”
During her briefing, County Executive Gardner said that the local commercial vacancy rate hit an all time low of 9% in 2016 compared to 14.4% in 2012. Investments in commercial and industrial projects this year has more than doubled what the county saw during the same period in 2014, according to a release from the County Executive’s office.
In the past two years, according to the news release, Frederick County added more than 4,000 jobs across different industry sectors. For the first time, the number of jobs in the county topped 100,000 last year, according to county officials.
By Kevin McManus