Employers have reported increasing numbers of layoffs in Maryland over the past week, with retailers New York & Co, Fashion to Figure, and Pandora and the Medieval Times dinner theater cutting more than 400 jobs.
State-ordered business shutdowns during the new coronavirus pandemic have led to a third week of record setting job losses. State officials reported Thursday another 108,508 Marylanders filed for unemployment, meaning the state’s total number of jobless claims since the coronavirus pandemic reached the area in early March has surpassed its total for all of 2019.
RTW Retailwinds, doing business as New York & Co. and Fashion to Figure stores, reported Wednesday that it laid off 263 people as of March 29 at 18 stores.
Those included Baltimore-area locations: Westview Mall in Catonsville, Abingdon, Annapolis Mall in Annapolis, Arundel Mills in Hanover, Harford Mall in Bel Air, the Mall in Columbia in Columbia, Marley Station Mall in Glen Burnie, Towson Town Center in Towon, TownMall of Westminster in Westminster and White Marsh Mall.
Medieval Times, an anchor at Arundel Mills, said Thursday it will lay off 146 people as of Sunday. And Pandora earlier this week reported layoffs of 34 people as of April 4 at the Gallery at Harborplace in downtown Baltimore, The Mall in Columbia and St. Charles Towne Center in Waldorf.
MetaCoastal LLC, which offers accounting, marketing, information technology and human resources services, told labor officials earlier this week that it had laid off 72 people last month in six offices.
Those job cuts, all reported to the Maryland Department of Labor, followed additional losses at hotels, fitness studios and movies theaters that reported hundreds of layoffs in the first few days of April alone.
More than 234,000 people filed for unemployment in Maryland from March 15 through April 3, more than the roughly 215,000 jobless claims the state said it received in all of 2019 — and the 232,000 in 2018.
Baltimore Sun reporter Scott Dance contributed to this article.
