New Mexico’s unemployment rate, on a seasonally adjusted basis, nudged up a tenth of a point in August as compared to August 2018. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the producer of the numbers, did not consider the change significant. The 4.9% unemployment rate ranks fifth among the states, just behind Arizona’s 5%.
The August employment numbers were released this afternoon by the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions.
The change in New Mexico’s employment—a 17,500 seasonally adjusted increase to 860,700 in August—is significant, however. This is a 2.1% bump.
Construction was up 4,300 wage jobs, not seasonally adjusted, for the year, a 9% increase, The BLS report.
Switching to unadjusted wage job numbers, the total grew 15,500 jobs, 1.8% growth. Not bad, but not joyous.
Leisure and hospitality (mostly tourism) led the grow of major sectors with 4,000 more jobs, or 4%. Construction followed with 3,300 jobs. Then it was professional and business services, plus 2,000; mining, plus 1,900; health care and social assistance, plus 1,800, and financial activities, up 1,200.
A cursory county review provides some confusion. Metro Albuquerque is up 11,000 jobs over the year. Eddy has added 3,200 with 2,100 more in Lea. That’s 16,300, more than the state’s 15,500 jobs. Yet all the other counties seemed to grow. Clearly a more detailed look is needed.
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