Administration Continues Hiding From Job Reality

Comes the cold water for any overall jolliness that might want to happen as a result of last week’s job performance news. Yes, New Mexico did post the nation’s second largest percentage wage job increase from June to July on a seasonally adjusted basis. Our 4,400 job increase was a 0.5% monthly job jump that tied with four other states behind Montana’s 0.7% Pretty good. And, yes, we did gain jobs from July 2013 to July 2014.
But there is that seasonality. Take away the adjustment for the month-over-month performance and we lost 3,400 jobs, dropping to 806,500 wage jobs in July 2014..
The Department of Workforce Solutions continues to ignore these ugly details.
More but…
Our year-over-year job increase was the nation’s smallest increase, also 0.5%, giving us the nation’s second worst economy, just after Alaska, the only state to lose jobs in July. Thus, our performance, while slightly better, still trails everyone else (almost).
Year over year, on a not seasonally adjusted basis, New Mexico gained 4,300 jobs, or 0.5%, about the same as the June to July increase.
Shifting to “employment,” which is different from wage jobs, New Mexico lost 3,200 jobs from July 2013 to July 2014 on a not seasonally adjusted basis. Do the adjustment and the annual loss becomes “only” 500 jobs.
Our metro areas reflected the state performance, which has to figure. Three metro areas lost jobs: Albuquerque (-200); Santa Fe (-1,000); and Farmington (-500). Nationally 38 other metro areas lost jobs, year over year, while 327 gained. Las Cruces gained 900 jobs.
A review of the sectors show the bag as being decidedly mixed. Education and health services, the state’s largest “private” job sector with 125,400 people in July, added 5,000 employees over the year. The sector is only sort of private because of government involvement in health care. The federal government also sends large amount of money to “for profit” educational institutions.
Professional and business services, the state’s second largest sector and presumed home to big numbers of science and engineering people, as well as landscape architects, lost 1,500 jobs for the year including 1,200 in Albuquerque. The much smaller manufacturing sector dropped 2,000 jobs, including 900 in Albuquerque, bringing the job-loss streak to 21 months.
Mining, meaning oil and gas, continued to save the state with 1,500 more jobs, year over year, bringing the sector’s job total to 27,900.

NM Economy Nation's 2nd Worst

Alaska lost a few jobs during July, the only state to do so. New Mexico added 4,300 wage jobs, a 0.5% increase. New Mexico's increase, while a nice switch from the months of job losses earlier this year, places the state as the nation's second worst in term of percentage job performance. Our increase is the nation's lowest. Three states showed a 0.7% wage job increase in July, the next best performance. They were Illinois, Nebraska, and Connecticut.
These numbers come from the Department of Workforce Solutions and are in the issue of the Labor Market Review newsletter that was released today. More later, early next week, most likely, when I have had a chance to look at the newsletter.
Bottom line for NM: Doing a little better. Still doing poorly.

Abq Home Sales Continue Behind 2013

The headline said, “July home sales in Albuquerque area take a tumble.” The headline was on the website of Albuquerque Business First. It is true, but only tells half the monthly performance story. July’s 823 closed sales of single family detached homes were up from June by 23 units or 3%. The “tumble” was taken from July 2013, which had 939 closed sales. July 2014 was 12.3% behind July 2013.
The “news” from the July sales performance is two items. First, the monthly sales performance fell behind 2013 for the first time since March. Second, pending sales were below July 2013. Pending sales have been behind 2013 all year on a month over month basis. Any upward market momentum has disappeared, no surprise given the Duke City’s job non-performance.
With two exceptions (the average price in February and the median in March), prices have stay above 2013 all year. In July, both the metro average and median price hit 2014 highs. The July average, $230,750, was 8%, or $17,246, above June and 3.7% ahead of July 2013. Three single family homes sol for $1 million or more during July. The median beat July 2013 by $8,000, or 4.4%, and was up $10,000, or 6%, from June.
The 823 sales closed during July were 88% of the 939 sales pending during June.
During July, single family homes took and average of 60 days to sell, the same average sales period as both June 2014 and July 2013.
Sales of condominiums and townhouses run less that 10% of single family homes. On a year over year basis, these continue to be behind 2013.