By: Nicholas Sohr

Updated at 4 p.m.

Gov. Martin O’Malley released a statement on the May jobs report just a few minutes ago. In it, he acknowledges “May was a tough month for job creation in Maryland.”

But, he said, “other trends suggest that we continue to move in the right direction. On the year, Maryland has achieved the largest reduction in unemployment in nearly three decades.”

Labor Secretary Alexander M. Sanchez took a similar approach to the numbers earlier this morning.

“May was a soft month, there’s no getting around it,” he said in conference call with reporters. “But there are indications in today’s report that show Maryland is poised to recover faster than other states.”

Original post:

There was something missing in the Maryland employment report out Friday morning.

It wasn’t the 15,300 private sector jobs that evaporated in May. It wasn’t 3,600 retail jobs, or 1,900 leisure and hospitality positions.

It was Gov. Martin O’Malley.

The governor was silent on the monthly report that, in addition to the private sector losses, showed the unemployment rate in the state held steady at 6.8 percent during a month more when Marylanders found jobs. (More on this discrepancy later.)

The governor’s take on the jobs report is usually a staple of the press releases sent to reporters around 10 a.m. on a Friday late in the month. Well, as long as the numbers are good.

Last month, in fact, O’Malley’s office beat the jobs report to my inbox. His statement arrived at 10 a.m. on May 20 and the figures from the Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation hit a minute later. They touted the 16,400 private sector jobs added to Maryland payrolls in April and the unemployment rate slipping from 6.9 percent to 6.8 percent.

There was no separate O’Malley statement on April 19, but the governor made the second paragraph of the DLLR announcement of an improving unemployment rate in March and the 15,000 jobs added since January.

“Maryland’s economy continues to grow as our state pulls out of this national recession. Thousands of Marylanders have entered the workforce since the start of the year and we recorded the largest monthly employment gain last month since the final month of President Clinton’s term,” O’Malley said then.

In March, DLLR beat the governor to the punch, but only by three minutes, as both talked up the 8,100 jobs added the month before.

The January report was similar to the one just released Friday. That month, the unemployment rate dropped from 7.4 percent to 7.2 percent and more Marylanders were working than in the month before, but the state also managed to lose 7,100 private sector jobs. Sound familiar?

Indeed, there was no statement from the governor on the jobs report that month, either.

The discrepancies in the January and May figures — fewer Maryland jobs, rising Maryland employment and a steady or improving unemployment rate — are due to where the figures are measured. The jobs number is based on residency, and the unemployment percentage is based on that figure. The employment or payroll number is based on place of employment. So, more Marylanders were finding work outside the state in January and May.