It was a long time coming, but the national recession has hit Maryland. Lorraine Mirabella writes:

The jobless rate jumped to 5.8 percent last month, according to preliminary statistics released today by the U.S. Labor Department . Maryland ended the year with 15,000 fewer jobs than in December 2007, the largest year-over-year loss since September 1992 and the first in five years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Until December Maryland had been adding jobs from month to month or at least managing not to lose them in large amounts. As Lorraine notes, the state had 15,000 fewer jobs in December 2008 than in December 2007. But most of these were lost at the very end of the year. On a month-to-month, seasonally adjusted basis, Maryland lost about 11,000 jobs from November to December, as the national financial crisis took hold.

Most of the statewide job loss -- almost 13,000 jobs year over year, came in metro Baltimore. From December to December, Bethesda, Gaithersburg and the other DC suburbs managed to add 800 jobs, according to the government.

This will get worse. 2009 will almost certainly be a recession year for Maryland and metro Baltimore. But the region is still doing better than the nation as a whole. Exhibit A: Pennsylvania, which lost 76,000 jobs from December to December. Pennsylvania's unemployment rate is 6.4 percent. National unemployment is 7.2 percent.