Maryland's 2023 economic forecast amid layoffs

It's the layoffs for me

Happy Monday, Baltimore. Hope you had a nice weekend and got to enjoy this spell of warm weather after dealing with ... whatever Saturday was.

So, as I mentioned last week, we at Technical.ly timed our Big Tech + You Month theme (see description below) with February. Last month's theme was Navigating a (Possible) Recession Month. Both of these themes speak to what appears like an ongoing dynamic that we've been trying to follow in Baltimore and elsewhere that Technical.ly covers: the seeming omnipresent threat of layoffs that can grip companies of all sizes during this time.

Today, we published a feature article that explores the very localized impact of these layoffs in Maryland — specifically, Baltimore County-HQed Medifast's layoffs of support workers at a facility in the rural Eastern Shore. The labor market for highly specialized workers is very different from that for less-specialized ones (saying "unskilled" feels a little off because I have a master's degree and doubt I could survive in any of these warehouse/fulfillment-type roles, but that's a conversation for another day).

That said, we still really don't know where this economy's going. So, I'm wondering: What do you predict for the 2023 labor market? And if you run a company with differently skilled workers, what qualifications or accomplishments are you looking for when considering who you might have to lay off? It's a hard convo to have, but we still need to have it.

Let us know your thoughts by emailing [email protected], and thanks in advance for your candor.