Wage Job Growth Is 2.5% for the 26 Rural Counties From March 2012 to March 2013

The real news about New Mexico’s wage job performance between March 2012 and March 2013 came in part from the Department of Workforce Services, released the metro job numbers last Friday afternoon. For the rest, I did the arithmetic. Brag, brag.
The state’s 26 rural counties added 6,400 wage jobs, year-over-year, for a 2.5% increase. The rural counties added more than half a percentage point to bring their share of the state’s wage jobs to 32.54%.
DWS said Albuquerque added wage jobs during March from the February total. More than two or three, 2,200 in fact, for 0.6% growth. The figures are seasonally adjusted. While the percentage increase remained well under one, the number is big enough to perhaps be real instead of being some statistical flight of fancy.
In what I take to be desperation for good news, DWS chose to confuse the readers of its Labor Market Review newsletter, which unveiled the metro numbers. For Albuquerque, DWS threw month-to-month numbers and seasonally adjusted numbers into the salad with unadjusted and year-over-year figures. The casual reader, me to start, will take Albuquerque’s 2,200 new jobs are an annual gain.
Normally, the page one numbers on the Labor Market Review are annual performance and seasonally unadjusted.
New Mexico year-over-year gained 3,800 wage jobs on a seasonally unadjusted basis and 4,100 between February and March, again not seasonally adjusted.
Statewide and year-over-year, two sectors had job increases for more than 3%. Leisure and hospitality added 2,800 jobs, a 3.3% increase. Finance beat the percentage with 3.4% increase and 1,100 new jobs. Real estate, I wonder.
For the year in Albuquerque, however, it was a different game. Albuquerque lost 1,400 jobs (on a seasonally unadjusted basis) in the year from March 2012 and gained 2,500 between February and March.
Santa Fe was the only metro job with a year over year, seasonally unadjusted, job increase. The growth was slight, only 100 jobs, or 0.2%. Santa Fe’s wage job total remained 60,200 between February and March. For the year, Santa Fe lost 900 government wage jobs, 700 from state government.
Farmington dropped 700 jobs, or 1.4%, from March 2012 to March 2013. Las Cruces lost 600 jobs, year-over-year and seasonally unadjusted, down 0.9%.