UNM/BBER Economic Forecast

Those attending the economic forecast event hosted January 9 by the Bureau of Economic Research at the University of New Mexico got to pay again for a tiny portion of information they had already paid for. What that means is that UNM's forecasting service is almost entirely paid for with tax money. It also means that UNM produced a detailed sector by sector quarterly forecast for the state and the four metropolitan areas—Albuquerque, Farmington, Las Cruces and Santa Fe. Though financed by the public, UNM reveals only a tiny part of its forecast to the public. The reasons are bureaucratic and won't be repeated here, in part because UNM has long since won its battle for continued public financed near secrecy. 

The information that follows is taken from the presentation materials that are on BBER's Web site. Dig a while, and you can find it. See: www.unm.edu~bber/pubs/LarryPPT2008.pdf.

Following a decent, but entirely bare-bones historical sector summary of the state, the metros and a couple of counties, the forecast began with statewide job growth: 1.6% in both 2008 and 2009.

Annual job growth forecasts for eight sectors followed. Highlights:

Natural resources and mining: 2.2% job growth in 2008 followed by four years of job losses.

Professional and Business Services: 1.3% in 2008, then 2.6%.

Information: 4% in 2008, 1.8% in 2009.

The other sectors shown on the forecast were either government of support sectors such as construction. The other two basic economic sectors were not shown on the forecast. They are manufacturing and Leisure and Hospitality, the tourism sector.

Statewide job growth, 1.2% between November 2006 and November 2007, will have to improve to meet BBER's forecast.