Friday, December 29, 2017

Rural Counties Dominate Job Growth

In reporting last week the net increase of 9,600 wage jobs, not seasonally adjusted, between November 2016 and November 2017, I forgot to mention a salient detail—increase was down by 3,600 of 27% from the 13,200 jobs added in October, year over year. The October to October jump sparked amazement and doubt at the New Mexico Tax Research Institute conference December 19. The wizards aren’t confident the 13,200 increase is real.
The November to November increase was 1.1%. Rural counties dominated. For the period, while the 3,000-job increase in Albuquerque sounds nice, it was just 0.8%, behind the state growth rate. Las Cruces and Santa Fe lost 400 jobs between them. Farmington showed no change.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the November issues of the Labor Market Review newsletter this morning.
Lea and Eddy counties accounted for about 2,450 of the 9,600 new jobs, roughly a quarter. The comparison has some apples and sagebrush, one number being jobs, the other being employment, but its close enough. The number is also well under the Lea/Eddy gain of 3,245 reported last week. No explanation there; maybe I can’t read.

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