Eight States Lose Jobs in April; NM Loses the Fewest

The detailed wage job numbers for April, released late this afternoon by the Department of Workforce Solutions, confirm that metro Albuquerque is doing almost decently and certainly better than everywhere else in New Mexico. The figures below are not seasonally adjusted.
Albuquerque gained 3,200 jobs for the month and 4,700 for the year between April 2015 and April 2016. The year-over-year increase was 1.2%, hardly stellar, but far better than the state and other metro areas.
Farmington continued its unhappy performance with a 400-job loss, or 0.78%, over the year. Santa Fe added 500 jobs. Education and Health Services, up 500 jobs for the year, explains the Santa Fe growth.
Las Cruces added 200. The Las Cruces growth came on the strength of 900 more jobs in Education and Health Services, a 6.2% increase. Other Las Cruces sectors either lost a little or showed no change for the month.
In metro Albuquerque, as elsewhere, Education and Health Services led the growth, up 5.2%, or 3,200 jobs, year over year. Professional and business services added 1,400 jobs while state government chipped in with 1,000.
The state’s loss of 300 jobs led the eight job-loser states in the sense of the smallest percentage drop. New Mexico’s 6.6% unemployment rate is fourth among the states after the District of Columbia, West Virginia and Nevada. Only one New Mexico county, Luna, has an unemployment rate over ten percent. The Luna rate is 15.6%.
Oil production is the state’s job problem these days with aggregate mining and logging sector down 6,400 jobs or about 25% year-over-year. This reverses the situation of the last ten years or so where oil and gas production has provided nearly all the job growth.