Thursday, September 22, 2011

Rural Counties Add 7,200 Wage Jobs. Metros Lose.

The Department of Workforce Services released new job numbers today. In my Sunday (9/18) entry, I covered the big picture, using the federal figures. Today I’ll concentrate on the metro areas. The numbers that follow are for wage jobs and are not seasonally adjusted.

Albuquerque lost wage jobs for the 35th consecutive month on a year over year basis. The loss was 1,600 wage jobs (0.4%) for the year with a 400-job gain between July and August. One reason, DWS said, is that mining, while growing nicely statewide with an 1,800 job, or ten percent, August to August increase, have only two or three jobs in metro Albuquerque and therefore can’t help things grow.

Leisure and hospitality in Albuquerque, which more or less means tourism and local restaurants, added 1,300 jobs (3%) year over year which losing 300 jobs between July and August.

Las Cruces dropped 100 jobs year-over-year while adding 1,800 between July and August. The improvement had nearly everything to do with New Mexico State University getting backing session.

Santa Fe added 400 jobs for the month and lost 100 for the year. That 100-job loss is 0.2%, nearly nothing.

Farmington added 1,100 jobs over the year, a nice 2.3% gain and had no change between July and August.

The four metro areas together lost 700 jobs year-over-year. The means the rural counties added 7,200 jobs.

Things continue to improve on my ten percent unemployment measure. We’re down to two counties with more than ten percent unemployment—Luna and Mora, both with rates approaching 13%.

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