Albuquerque Dominates Job Growth

On a year-over-year basis in October, Albuquerque continued to dominate wage job growth in the state, and those gains, as reported last week, were fairly decent for New Mexico. The Department of Workforce Solutions released detailed October job numbers yesterday.
Metro Albuquerque added 6,000 wage jobs on a seasonally unadjusted basis between October 2016 and October 2017. The 1.5% annual growth was just a hair behind the state’s 1.6%. For the month between September and October, Albuquerque added 1,900 jobs, all thanks to government, which grew by 2,000 jobs including 1,600 from state government.
For the year, Albuquerque’s growth was private sector, led 1,400 finance jobs (doing what, I wonder?), a eight percent jump from sector’s low base of 18,400 jobs. Professional and business services and education and health care both added 1,300 jobs. Construction and leisure and hospitality (tourism) each added 1,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality lost 1,300 jobs during September due, I presume, to seasonal reductions.
For Santa Fe and Las Cruces, local government in Las Cruces, down 500 jobs for the year, was the only sector with job movement (up or down) of more than 200.