Job Growth Over 2% For Second Month

New Mexico’s job growth was 2.2% for the year between July 2018 and July 2018, according to the report released by the Department of Workforce Solutions this afternoon. That means 17,900 new jobs, on a seasonally unadjusted basis, with about a third, or 6,500, in the leisure and hospitality sector, which has tourism as a big component. Construction continued the rapid growth with a 4,200 job increase, or 9.1%.
Make the seasonal adjustment and the statewide growth is 13,400, or 1.6%, still not bad.
With 4.7% unemployment in July, New Mexico slipped from its long hold on the nation’s third highest state unemployment rate. In addition to Alaska (6.9 %), clinging to its first place with the highest rate, three other states beat New Mexico. They are West Virginia (5.4 percent), Louisiana (4.9 percent), Mississippi (4.8 percent) and the District of Columbia (5.6 percent).
New Mexico went from 6.1% unemployed in July 2017 to 4.7%, more than double the improvement of the next three improving states, all with a 0.6-point change. They are Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.
The labor force has grown to 943,004 in July 2018, an 11,000 one-year increase. The number of unemployed has dropped about 14,500 over the year, to 47,547.