Montgomery County added more than 7,600 new jobs and 150 new companies during the year ending June 30, according to a report released this week.

Those numbers pleased county officials, who said the new jobs represented a 2 percent growth in the county’s economy, the highest in two years.

“I think it’s a good indication that we’ve got a strong economy that’s going to help pay for a lot of services that would otherwise be paid for by individual tax payers,” said County Council member Steve Silverman, who chairs the planning, housing and economic development subcommittee.

Jobs added during fiscal year 2006, which ran from July 1, 2005, through June 30, constituted more than 3.4 million square feet of office space and represented a number of different industries, ranging from biotech to the service industry and retail businesses, said Joe Shapiro, spokesman for the county’s Department of Economic Development, which issued the report.

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“It runs the gamut. You’ve got everything from biotech to banking,” Shapiro said Wednesday. “It really shows the diversity of the county’s economy now.”

Shapiro did not have data on county job losses or business closures during the same time period.

He attributed the county’s job growth in part to its business incubator program, which has helped to add 11,000 new jobs since its creation in 2000.

The county has added about 93,000 jobs since 1995 and has become the largest job center in Maryland, the county report stated. It has also become one of the state’s most diverse job centers. According to U.S. Census data, Montgomery County has the largest number of female and Latino-owned businesses in Maryland. It is also home to the second-highest number of black-owned businesses in the state.

At a glance

A sampling of the companies that have added new jobs in Montgomery County during the past fiscal year:

» National Institutes of Health, 1,000 total employees

» American Speech Language Hearing Association, 490 total employees

» CIS Global, 150 total employees

» Development Alternatives Inc, 100 total employees

» Association of Public Health Laboratories, 69 total employees

cmabeus@dcexaminer.com