DWS Projections Show Ten-Year Job Growth At Less Than 1% Annually

With 5,200 new jobs generated in June on a year-over-year basis, Albuquerque provided less than a third of the state’s 17,300 new wage jobs. This is a big step down from May when the Duke City provided 7,300 new jobs, 51% of the 13,800 jobs for the month.
Statewide, the June to June growth saw 17,300 new wage jobs for 2.1% growth. That put New Mexico in a tie with four other states for 12th place in percentage growth. Those states are Oregon, Tennessee, New Hampshire and South Dakota. Amazing.
Last week’s report that New Mexico remained in third place for unemployment rates with 4.9% unemployed missed something. We are actually in fourth place behind West Virginia (5.3%), District of Columbia (5.6%) and Alaska, the longtime leader at 7.1%.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the detailed June job report today as part of the Labor Market Review newsletter.
For the other metros, Santa Fe added 1,200 jobs over the year. Farmington was up 600 and Las Cruces dropped
In Albuquerque professional and business services showed the largest sector gain, both in number with 3,900 jobs and percent with a 6.4% increase. The PBS sector “only” added 4,300 jobs statewide. Leisure and hospitality added 1,100 jobs in Albuquerque, 22% of the sector’s 4,900 new jobs statewide. Local government dropped 2,800 jobs during June, dragging the sector to a 2,600 job loss for the year.
In Las Cruces, government accounted for 800 of the total 900 lost jobs.
Government lost 400 jobs in Santa Fe where the one big increase was leisure and hospitality with 900 more jobs over the year.
From a 2016 base of 861,820, the Department of Workforce Solutions projects that employment in the state will add 57,580 jobs by 2026. That would bring employment to 919,400. The growth for the ten-year period will be 6.7%, or less than one percent per year or hardly at all. Such projection necessarily start with what we have, which, in 2016, was years of slight if any job growth. The projections assume no change in what we had in 2016. The projection, therefore, is “more of the same.”
Health care and social assistance with 25,960 jobs, or a 19.5% increase, leads the sectors. Accommodation and food services, tourism, sort of, is second with 7,120 jobs, or 7.9% growth.
DWS initially distributed the Labor Market Review using May's detailed sector for Albuquerque. It took about 90 minutes to fix the error and redistribute the issue. Nice save, guys.