Job Growth Hits 1.1%. Woo Hoo!

Our year-over-year job growth rate rocketed to 1.1% in October. On a seasonally unadjusted basis, that’s 9,100 more wage jobs over the year between October 2013 and October 2014. Woo hoo!
Mining provided 1,700 of the new jobs, a 6.4% increase and the highest growth rate of the year, said the Department of Workforce Solutions in its release this morning. For October, mining also led the sectors in percentage growth for the year.
Nationally, said the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics in its release, “Regional and state unemployment rates were generally little changed in October.” New Mexico fit that pattern with a seasonally adjusted 6.5% unemployment rate in October, just barely better than the 6.6% in September and 6.8% in October 2013.
Education and health services, the largest “private” employment sector led numerical growth with 4,900 new jobs, year over year. The quotes around “private” come because my guess is that government pays for much (how much?) of the sector. Think Medicare.
E&HS had 129,300 jobs in October.
Finance continued its rapid grow with 2,000 jobs year over year, a 5.9% increase.
Government lost 200 jobs over the year with the losses among the feds. Local government added 200; the state lost 200. Total government jobs dropped below 30,000 to 29,800. Total government employment was 195,900 during October 2014.
Federal employment was 29,000 in March 2005 with total government jobs at 204,400.
Total government employment was 181,700 in October 1999 with the feds at 30,100. The increase since 1999 has come in local government.
Manufacturing continued its disappearing act, down 2,300 jobs of 7.7% for the year. Professional and business services dropped 1,000.

Home Sales Up in Oct., Defy Seasonal Trend

Sales of single family detached homes in metro Albuquerque increased during October, defying the usual season trend of declining and the weather cools. Maybe it was the weather. The Duke City recorded the third warmest October in record keeping history, The Albuquerque Journal reported. The weather worm has turned, however. As this is written, it is 36 degrees in Albuquerque with a forecast low of 25.
Sales of 758 homes closed during October. That was up 55 units or 8% from September and 4.8% more than the 723 homes closed during October 2013. Closed sales had dropped on a year over year basis for six months.
Pending sales—831 for October—increased over October 2013. This marked the second year-over-year increase of 2014. September was the first.
The median price stayed at the September level—$175,000, which was up 5.4% from October 2013. The average sales price—$212,905— was up around two percent from September 2014 and October 2013.
Sales took at average of 66 days to close during October. That was up from 65 the previous two months and from 63 days during October 2013.

The Election: Gary King and Amendment One

Two factors explain the New Mexico election to me. First is the weakness of Gary King as a candidate. A decent man to be sure, a terrible candidate. No dynamic whatsoever. The outcome is much less that Gov. Martinez “won.” It is that Gary King had to win, to convince voters he was a good alternative. That didn’t happen. He lost.
The second factor is that Republicans, acting against decades of habitual incompetence, did some things right. They found legislative candidates who could walk and chew gum at the same time. They trained the candidates and got them some money. Unlike the governor’s race, voters had a real choice in the key legislative districts and, to a fair they degree, chose the Republicans.
The New Mexico precedent is in the efforts that brought conservation coalitions of around 1980 and with GOPAC nationally around 1990. Likewise the down-ballot candidates were competent. Three won: Diana Duran reelected Secretary of State, Aubrey Dunn elected Land Commissioner, Miles Hanisee to the Court of Appeals. Rick Lopez, an entirely obscure government manager, was surprisingly (to me)competitive for State Treasurer.
Allen Weh at least got Tom Udall’s attention. But Weh is even older than Udall, disqualifying him from being a fresh face. Voters are used to Udall. Udall is an old shoe. I remember a September email from the Weh campaign that said it was time to start drawing the contrast with Udall. Well, no, it was much too late. Still, Weh made a substantial effort and for that he is to be commended.
According to the Secretary of State’s tabulation constitution amendment one that would have changed school board election dates got 57.6% of the vote. It failed, however, due to once again tripping over the constitution’s “unamendable” requirement of 75% approval. A similar proposal a few years was just shy of the 75%. The Albuquerque Journal reported November 5 that the amendment was successful.
The mystery is the lack of a campaign for the amendment from sponsors Senators Michael Sanchez and Daniel Ivey-Soto. They knew about the 75% requirement. Why did they even bother with proposing the amendment?