After enduring several years of declines in government spending, the Washington, D.C. region is once again benefiting from stability in the federal budget. But the area’s economy is also now less reliant on Capitol Hill, as evidenced by recent job gains in the private sector.
The D.C. metro area includes the nation’s capital, nine counties in Virginia, five counties in Maryland and one county in West Virginia. The bulk of the region’s new jobs are coming from professional and business services, construction, and education and health services.
The hospitality and tourism industry is also a significant generator of economic activity in Washington, D.C., which is home to the SHRM 2016 Annual Conference and Exposition from June 19 to 22. In 2015, there were 19.3 million domestic visitors to the city and they collectively spent $7.1 billion in the nation’s capital, according to Destination D.C., a tourism marketing group. The hospitality and tourism sector supports more than 74,000 jobs in Washington, D.C., according to Destination D.C.
Among the region’s locally-headquartered Fortune 500 companies are defense contractors Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, financial services company Capital One Financial, and hoteliers Marriott International and Hilton Worldwide Holdings.
To learn more about Washington, D.C. and other metro economies, please go to:
Joe Coombs is Senior Analyst, Workforce Trends and Forecasting for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Joe tracks current trends and issues in the labor market including the economy's impact on hiring and recruiting, wages and compensation, retirement benefits and the aging of the work force. In addition to The Jobs Blog, he also writes monthly and bi-annual reports on the labor market using data culled by the research department. Contact him at Joseph.Coombs@shrm.org or on LinkedIn.
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