Maryland's construction sector -- which includes commercial as well as residential -- has felt the hit of the housing market change. But commercial building has remained strong enough to help keep job growth positive.

Here's a snapshot of recent trends, with data from the U.S. Department of Labor. It's an October to October chart, so the 3,600-job growth listed for 2007 is Oct. 2006 through Oct. 2007:

As you can see, the most recent 12-month stretch has the least job growth since 2002 -- which, though it was the year after a recession, was actually a lousier time for employment growth across sectors in Maryland than 2001.

But it could be worse ...