Thursday, July 30, 2015

Abq Jobs Up 2.2%, SF, LC Down

Average weekly manufacturing sector wages dropped from almost $50/week from June 2014 to June 2015, the Department of Workforce Solutions reported n the Labor Market Review newsletter released Tuesday. Sector average wages were $726.68 in June 2014 and $678.12 a year later. The drop was due to lowers wages and fewer hours worked.
Not that manufacturing is a big deal in the state with about three percent of wage jobs. But it is an important part of the basic employment group, sectors that ship their products from the state and are paid with money originating from outside the state.
But even this claim is less than meets the eye. Manufacturing includes printing and publishing, nearly all of which is sold within the state.
During the year from June 2014 to June 2015, the wage job total, seasonally adjusted, grew by 10,900, a measly 1.3 percent increase, from 816,400 to 827,300.
Even this increase, though welcome, is something of a charade, at least with regards to building a solid economy and increasing the wealth of New Mexicans. That’s because about two-thirds of the increase, or 6,500 jobs, came in the education and health services sector.
I finally got around to asking a wizard friend, a labor economist, what was happening. The reply was, “Healthcare has been strong for quite some time both due to Medicaid and Affordable Healthcare Act. Also, when one looks at the (more detailed) data most of the growth is in Ambulatory Health Care Services, and Social Assistance with just marginal increases in Hospitals and Nursing and Residential Care Facilities.”
In other words, government action explains much of the increase. Not good.
Metro area performance remains mixed.
Albuquerque added 8,300 wage jobs, not seasonally adjusted, a decent enough 2.2 percent increase, from June 2014 to June 2015. But that was two-thirds of the state’s 12,700 job increase, again not seasonally adjusted.
Professional and business services led Albuquerque with 3,600 new jobs, 90 percent of the sectors increase statewide over the June to June year. Education and health care added 2,700 jobs in Albuquerque, a third of the 7,700-job increase statewide.
For Farmington, little detail is available other than the grand totals. Well, maybe not grand, but pretty good. The 1,100 new wage jobs represented 2.2 percent growth rate.
Las Cruces and Santa Fe both lost jobs during the year. Las Cruces was down 400 jobs, Santa Fe dropped 100.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Horse Show Off to OKC

On the plane June 18 from Minneapolis to Albuquerque, we happened to sit next to a woman coming to judge the Youth National Arabian and Half-Arabian Championship Horse Show being held in Albuquerque this week. The show is at Tingley Coliseum at Expo New Mexico, aka the state fairgrounds.
The show goes to Oklahoma City next year and will not return to Albuquerque, at least not anytime soon, our seat-mate indicated.
Tingley might best (and most politely) be called a big old barn. It is inadequate in all respects, she said, for the 800 horses (I think she said 800.)
That OKC got aggressive explains the change. We did not. She appeared to have no special affection for Albuquerque or Oklahoma City. This was business.
According to a July 16 Albuquerque Journal story, “A key factor in selecting Oklahoma City over Albuquerque was its infusion of $100 million in improvements to Oklahoma City’s State Fair Park, the venue that will host the youth Arabian show from 2016 through at least 2018, Glenn Petty, executive vice president for AHA, told the Journal in March.”
I doubt that the fairgrounds rise (or sink) to the level of the state’s deep and structural troubles. But the situation does raise the priority question. Do we care? Not so much, apparently.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Jobs Up 1.6% in June

Nothing statistically significant happened to the overall New Mexico job picture between June 2104 and June 2015, nor between May 2015 and June 2015, said the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics today in its monthly jobs release. The BLS phrase actually was that the biggest bunch of states were “not appreciably different” from either June 2014 or May 2015.
The exception was our unemployment rate, “significantly different” at 6.4% for June from the 5.3% national rate.
Nonagricultural wages jobs were 825,600 in June, down 6,600 from May but up 12,600 from June 2014, a 1.6% increase.
Education and health services remained the star with a 7,700 year-over-year job gain, or 6.2%. As noted before, these increases don’t make sense. Maybe they are Medicaid. Or Obamacare? Get out your salt shaker, the one with the big grains.
Next comes the professional and business services with 4,000 presumably non-funky new wage jobs over the year, a 4% gain.
Leisure and hospitality follows with 2,900 new wage jobs from June 2014 to June 2015. A few weeks ago the tourism department releases its latest market study and claimed a very good year for tourism.
Other services lost 2,400 jobs for the year, followed by construction, down 1,400.

Sunday, July 12, 2015

Home Sales Up 23% from June 2014

In June monthly sales of metro Albuquerque single family detached homes continued above the comparable month of 2014. The metro saw sales close on 924 homes during June, 23% over June 2014 and a nice 8% increase from May. The Greater Albuquerque Association of Realtors released the June sales report late Friday.
Pending sales, the harbinger of sales closing the next month, jumped 26.5% from June 2014. However, pending sales dropped 46 units from May. Pending in June 2014 were down 56 from May 2014.
The homes that closed during June spent relatively little time on the market, an average of 56 days. The inventory of homes available for sale has been below 2014 for all of 2015.
The median price for detached homes closed during June was $190,788, up 6% from May 2015 and from June 2014 and the highest since 2012.
The average price was $226,337, the highest since $230,750 in July 2014. The average
below the comparable month of 2014 during both April and May. However, for June the average price increased 6% from June 2014. June’s average was up 3.6% from May and 7% from April.
The increase in average price came without help from million dollar homes. None closed during June. There were 48 homes sold during June in the two prime groups from $500,000 to $999,000, nearly double the 25 homes in those two groups sold during 2014.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Balloon Puzzle in Minnesota

In one of the waiting rooms at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, there are several jigsaw puzzles to help people pass the waiting time. This morning a young woman was working on one depicting the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. She said attending the fiesta was on her list of life things to do, "bucket list," I think she said.
Msyo in Rochester attracts an international crowd. As one measure, burkas are popular among the women. SO the Balloon fiesta message, however it got there, hits an international audience.