Abq Jobs Up 2% June-to-June. Workers Moving to Colorado

Metro Albuquerque added 7,600 wage jobs for a 2% increase from June 2016 to June 2017. Not bad, pretty good actually for us, but short of the stellar 2.3% and 19,300 jobs reported for the state. The other three metro areas were flat for the year with Las Cruces up 500 (+0.7%), Santa Fe up 300 (0.5%) and Farmington down 300 or 0.6%. For the 26 rural counties, subtract the metros and find that they were up 8,100 jobs for the year.
The statewide mystery increase came in finance with 1,000 new jobs, 5.5% increase on a base of 18,300 jobs in June 2016. From where?
The figures were released yesterday afternoon, July 28, by the Department of Workforce Solutions. The report is in DWS’ Labor Market Review newsletter.
New Mexico’s unemployment, 6.4% in June, remained second nationally to Alaska’s 6.8%. The District of Columbia with 6.2% unemployment is the only other area above six percent.
Sector activity in Las Cruces and Santa Fe was modest, plus or minus 100 jobs here and there. The two added 800 leisure and hospitality jobs between them.
For the month between May and June 2017, the state dropped 1,100 jobs, or 0.1%, with 6,000 additional private sectors jobs more than offset by 7,100 fewer public sector jobs. The state’s job drop concentrated in education with higher ed, down 2,800 and local ed, down 5,200. Welcome to summer.
Albuquerque’s happiness was led by education and health services (Medicaid) up 2,800, followed by leisure and hospitality, up 2,300 jobs.
State government in three metros added 900 jobs over the year with no change in Farmington. The rest of the state, therefore, was down 1,400 jobs.
This month’s Labor Market Review contains an information analysis was worker migration from 2007 to 2015.
As might be expected, we lose workers to neighboring and nearby states, Texas and Colorado especially. Also Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota. The Northwest is a big attraction with Washington and Oregon both drawing more than 1,100 workers for the nine-year period. Workers can to the state from places such as California, Illinois, Michigan Missouri and Mississippi.
DWS split the analysis into 2007 to 2010 and 2011 to 2015. As New Mexico’s economy deteriorated in the 2011 to 2015 time, worker movement changed. People moved to Arizona and California from New Mexico. Movement to Texas increased and went way up to Colorado with about a three-fold increase.