Revisions Reduce 2017 Job Totals

For the year between January 2017 and January 2018, the state’s three job-gaining metro areas produced 5,100 new wage jobs.
Albuquerque accounted for 56% of the statewide year-over-year job growth with 3,900 new wage jobs, a one percent increase. Farmington’s 1.9% increase led the metro percentage growth. Santa Fe added 300 jobs for a 0.5% increase. However, throw in Las Cruces, which lost 1,400 jobs or two percent, for the year and the net metro performance becomes 3,700 new jobs.
The numbers come from the Labor Market Review, the newsletter of the Department of Workforce Solutions which was released yesterday.
For readers’ added enjoyment, the Review offered a bonus, a huge typographical error in the main headline which said, “Highlights: January 2017 Labor Market Data.”
New Mexico’s 0.9% growth lagged next worst performing of eight other peer states in the southwest and Rocky Mountains by half a percentage point. That state was Wyoming with 1.4% job growth for the year.
The state’s unemployment rate dropped from 6.5% in January 2017 to 5.9% in January 2018. We remain entrenched in the ranking of second worst unemployment rate among the states, behind only Alaska, which has 7.3% unemployment.
The new numbers reflect the annual benchmarking process of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. This process plugs into the job reports, which usually come from a sampling, a broader count through the quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. With the revisions, individual sectors have their ups and downs.
Overall the revisions were not good news. The average growth rate for 2016 dropped to 0.3%, or 2,800 jobs. The improved performance for the state during 2017 came on a smaller base than was initially supposed. The revisions dropped the average wage job total by 9,000 to 830,500.
Two key sectors gained in reported average employment. Mining was revised up an average of 2,000 jobs. The change made the jobs gains in Lea and Eddy counties consistent with the sector gains. As noted in last week’s post, mining showed a 700-job gain for the year, a nice turn from a month ago when the sector performance was down 700 jobs for the December 2016 to December 2017 year. Professional and business services shows 1,300 more jobs, on average for the year.
The larger drops came in retail trade (2,500), educational services (1,900), leisure and hospitality (2,900) and state government education which mostly means universities (2,000).