State Job Growth Is 2.2% in September

uring September unemployment rates were stable in 39 states, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Non-farm wage jobs were “essentially unchanged” in 45 states. New Mexico was one of the states with “statistically significant” changes in seasonally adjusted wage job totals for the year from September 2018 to September 2019, the BLS said. Our 18,800 net new jobs were a 2.2% gain. Nice!
The state Department of Workforce Solutions also release job totals today.
New Mexico’s 4.9% unemployment rate in September ties Arizona for fourth place nationally. Alaska leads with Mississippi and the District of Columbia tied for second at 5.4% unemployed. The state's unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, hasn’t changed in three months and was 4.9% a year ago.
Construction and mining were the state’s sector performance leaders for the September to September year. Construction saw 10% growth with 4,700 new jobs. Mining, which is pretty much oil and gas, added 2,000 jobs for an 8.1% increase. Leisure and hospitality (the proxy for tourism) followed with 7,200 new jobs and 7.3% growth.
The other gainers were professional and business services, up 2,400 jobs and 2.2%, and health care and social assistance, up 2,200 and 1.8%.
Government grew over the year, led by local government (excluding education), up 2,200 jobs and 4.4%. State government (excluding education) added 1,000 jobs for 3.2% growth as the administration continued to fill those authorized but vacant positions. The feds grew by 1,000 jobs and 3.5%.
Eddy and Lea counties continued their oil-driven jobs with increases, respectively of 3,300 jobs (to 33,895) and 2,000 jobs to 32,153.

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.

Job Growth Gains Significance

The New Mexico rate of unemployment continues down, though the state retains its grip on the nation’s third highest rate at 5.1% unemployed. The state’s drop in unemployment rate hit the “statistically significant” mark for both the one month change from 5.4% in April to 5.1% in May and year-over-year with the change from 6.2% in May 2017. The one-month performance of -0.3 percentage points was the nation’s best.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the May job report yesterday.
Our year over year seasonally adjusted employment change, a 1.6% increase, was also statistically significant. There were 828,500 people employed in the state in May 2017 and 841,700 in May 2018, a 13,200 increase. The labor force grew by 10,000. Employment grew by 20,000 and unemployment dropped 9,000.
Switching to a not seasonally adjusted basis, Eddy and Lea counties, now dealing with a drilling boom, accounted for a quarter of the year-over-year job growth. Eddy County employment increased by 1,914. Lea employment grew 1,452.
Again not seasonally adjusted basis, over the year, the labor fore grew by 20,000.
The improvement covered most of the major supersectors. (These used to called “sectors.”)
The increases (not seasonally adjusted) were in mining, 300; construction, 2,900 (6.4%); non-durable manufacturing, 700; transportation and warehousing, 1,700; financial, 2,000; professional and business services, 3,000 (3.7%); and leisure and hospitality, 3,400 (3.5%, summer hiring?).
Health care and social assistance and information, both down 700, were the only sectors of size to lose more than a few jobs.
State government education dropped 900 jobs (university summer school?). Local government education dropped 400 (public schools out for the summer?).

NM Economy Improving; Long Way To Go

The “overall message” from Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City regional economist Alison Felix on April 18 was, “Things are improving. There is a long way to go.”
Felix spoke in Albuquerque at the Fed’s Albuquerque Economic Forum.
Today Felix got a supporting new number from the Department of Workforce Solutions and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. New Mexico’s unemployment dropped another two tenths of a point in March to 5.6%, down from 5.8% in February and 6.3% in March 2017. Maine, Ohio and Wyoming were the other states with over-the-month unemployment rate decreases. In Maine, hardly anyone is unemployed; the rate is 2.7%.
But on the other hand, that favorite economist’s expression, the state’s unemployment remained second highest in the nation, a point DWS ignored. The good news starts from a low (or high) base.
Metro Albuquerque, with 46% of employment in the state has 4.7% unemployment.
The state added 8,900 wage jobs (seasonally unadjusted) from March 2017 to March 2018 for 1.1% growth. The growth appears erratic. There were 11,000 new year-over-year jobs in February, 7,000 in January and 10,800 in December.
Construction remains the sector growth leader with 3,000 new jobs in the March year, a 4.7% increase. Manufacturing, with 1,200 new jobs, tied construction for the percentage increase lead with 4.7% growth. That manufacturing is growing at all suggests improvement in the New Mexico economy. In part, Felix said, the manufacturing slump has been tied to energy, which supports a lot of manufacturing.
Employment growth has reached Lea and Eddy counties, the oil production heartland. (Note: “employment” is different from “jobs,” developed by different methods. The categories are closely related, of course.)
Lea County employment grew by 1,310 or 5.1%, year over year. Eddy employment grew 2,026. The county job growth seems curious in light of zero mining sector job growth. The two counties do have other things happening such as Carlsbad Caverns and Urenco’s National (uranium) Enrichment Facility near Eunice.
On yet another hand for Lea and Eddy, the drilling boom in the Permian Basin that includes Lea and Eddy is running into some of the bottlenecks characterizing booms, starting a labor shortage. Pipeline capacity is beginning to be problem, the Wall Street Journal reported April 19. Pipelines for natural gas, producing along with oil, are having some of the same dilemmas. “Some producers face the prospect of shutting wells,” the Journal said.
Professional and business services was the number two job producing sector with additional of 2,600. Leisure and hospitality added 1,900. Financial activities grew by 1,200. Transportation, warehousing and utilities added 1,000.
Retail trade, down 1,100, led the losers followed by information and state government education, both down 1,000, and health care, which lost 700.

State Gains Jobs. Mining Loses. Eddy, Lea Counties Gain

The year-end jobs report shows few signs of life in the New Mexico economy. My assessment is that our economy is weak and getting a little less weak. The claim by Gov. Susana Martinez in the January 16 State of the State address that we are strong and getting stronger is nonsense.
The state added 10,800 wage jobs in the year between December 2016 and December 2017, massive growth of 1.3%. Government lost 700 jobs over the year; the private sector added 11,500. For the month of December, the state lost 500 jobs.
The unemployment rate was six percent in December, nicely down from 6.7% a year ago. The state is now tied Washington, D.C., for the second highest rate behind Alaska. We had been third for months after D.C. and Alaska. The year-over-year unemployment rate drop was big enough to gain the designation of statistical significance from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the numbers for the Department of Workforce Solutions to repackage and release. DWS released the report yesterday. The state’s job gain wasn’t big enough to be significant.
My guess is that the expansion of the national economy explains much for the state’s improvement. For example, leisure and hospitality, which is tourism to a fair extent, tied with construction to lead sector growth with 3,100 additional wage jobs. New Mexicans traveling in-state aren’t driving the growth. Instead, people from other states with jobs and higher incomes are visiting here.
Weakness shows in the 700-job year-over-year drop in mining, which mostly is oil and gas. Yet Eddy and Lea counties, center of the business, gained 3,400 jobs over the year. Even long-suffering San Juan County, home to the gas business, gained around 700 jobs.
More weakness shows in manufacturing, which continues to fade, dropping another 200 jobs for the year.
The two sectors are small, which only 44,300 jobs between them in December. But they pay well and are basic industry sectors, unlike construction which depends on businesses in other sectors to need buildings.

Job Gains Continue; Government Employment Drops 3,000

The New Mexico economy keeps chugging along, producing jobs at a rate that’s more than decent for New Mexico. The Department of Workforce Solutions released summary numbers today.
The increase in wage jobs between November 2016 and November 2017 was 1.1%, not enough to be statistically significant for the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics but also not enough to complain about. The net increase of 9,600 jobs, not seasonally adjusted, was comprised of 12,600 new jobs in private sector and 3,000 fewer government jobs.
The state’s year-over-year unemployment rate change from 6.7% to 6.1% in November 2017 is statistically significant, the BLS says. Even so, it appears we still claim the nation’s second highest unemployment rate. The unemployment rate did not change between October and November.
Local government was the loss leader, down 1,500 jobs including 300 from education. The state dropped 1,400 jobs including 900 in education.
Construction produced 3,000 jobs over the year. Construction jobs reflect other things, so the increase is difficult to specify other than the Facebook job outside Los Lunas.
Leisure and hospitality, much of which is tourism, added 2,600 jobs, followed by 2,000 in professional and business services.
Financial activities produced 1,600 new jobs during the year. Educational services added 1,400. There are 1,400 new jobs in transportation, warehousing and utilities, many of which are in Santa Teresa around the port of entry.
Mining lost 600 jobs during the year. (The category is actually mining and logging, but there are few logging jobs.) The report seems curious because Eddy and Lea counties showed an employment gain of 3,245 year-over-year. (“Employment” and “wage jobs” come from different sources. The two counties host much of the state’s oil and gas production plus potash.
Employment in four-county metro Albuquerque grew by 5,330 during the year with 84% of the increase in Bernalillo County.

NM Adds 6,800 jobs. Unemployment Drop “Significant.”

New Mexico continues to add a few jobs. Not that 6,800 jobs, the number of new wage jobs appearing between September 2016 and September 2017, are “few.” But on the percentage scale of things, 0.8% growth isn’t much.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the September job summary today.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the job numbers, did consider our year-over-year unemployment rate change “statistically significant.” The rate dropped from 6.8% in September 2016 to 6.2% in September 2017. However, our job gain was not significant.
The unemployment rate dropped because employment went up a lot more than the labor force grew. The employment growth, however slight, is good. But the economy isn’t growing enough to draw many people back into the labor force.
The new job production started in construction which rocked with a 7% increase, or 3,000 jobs. Professional and business services added 1,900, followed by leisure and hospitality (tourism) with 1,700. Educational services added 1,500 jobs for the year. Retail contributed 1,400.
The only big loss for the month came from government. State government dropped 2,400 with 600 gone in education. Local government lost 1,100 including 600 in education.
Mining and manufacturing continued to lose, but the numbers were small, 400 in mining and 300 in manufacturing.

Mining Job Losses Dropped to 300, Year Over Year

New Mexico’s unemployment rate dropped ever so slightly during May. The change, on a seasonally adjusted basis, was from 6.7% in April and also May 2016 to 6.6% for May 2017. To call the “improvement” less than statistically insignificant seems appropriate.
Colorado continued with the lowest rate, 2.3%. New Mexico swapped places with Alaska is placed second. The DWS release, out this afternoon, studiously avoided these details.
The labor force, seasonally adjusted, grew by 8,062 to 934,867 during the year from May 2016 to May 2017. The number of unemployed stayed essentially the same during the year, dropping by 306 to 61,626 in May.
Statewide there appeared 7,500 net new jobs on a not seasonally adjusted basis during the May to May year with 10,000 jobs in the private sector and 2,500 fewer in government. The big government loss was 2,300 in state government education (post secondary schools), possibly due to the end of the semester.
Mining and logging lost another 300 jobs over the year, suggesting that sector’s three years of job losses may have essentially stopped.
Leisure and hospitality (tourism) led the gaining sectors with 3,500 more jobs, or 3.6% growth. Construction’s growth was 3,200 jobs, a 7.5% gain. Education and health services added 2,500 jobs with the gain split among the two sectors with education up 1,200 and health care up 1,300.

Construction Leads April Job Growth

Job production in metro Albuquerque dominates the metro areas these days with 86%, or 1,900, of the 2,200 metro wage jobs added between April 2016 and April 2017.
But the metro areas aren’t carrying the state. Those 2,200 metro jobs are just 30% of the 7,400 wage jobs appearing across the state during the April to April year.
The state’s smaller metros job growth was Santa Fe, +700; Las Cruces, +300; and -700 in Farmington.
In Albuquerque manufacturing lost 1,100 jobs for the year with professional and business services down 1,000.
Construction led sector job production in Albuquerque with 1,200 more jobs, year over year. Construction added another 1,400 jobs around the rest of the state. Education and health services added 900 jobs, but the EHS growth rate of 1.4% was well off the past years. Tourism (leisure and hospitality found 800 jobs during the year.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the metro job report today.

Job Growth Continued in June!!

Job growth continued in New Mexico during June. The sentence has two startling concepts—job growth and that the job growth continued. The increase was 7,200 wage jobs from June 2012 to June 2013, or 0.9%.
New Mexico’s performance hasn’t yet reached statistical significance, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which released numbers yesterday. So we’re still lumpfing along, but at least in the right direction.
Leisure and hospitality continued to lead the sector growth with 3,700 new jobs over the year on a not seasonally adjusted basis. The sector added 2,600 jobs between May and June as tourist firms increased staff for the summer.
Financial activities added 2,300 jobs as more homes sold and more mortgages were needed. There were 1,900 new wage job in construction during the year, a big switch and a 4.5% increase.
The information sector, which includes move and TV production, grew 10.1% during the June-to-June year. If indeed, the increase is due to film, the jobs will go away as projects end.
All in all, the private sector added 10,600 jobs during the year for a 1.7% increase. Government lost 3,400 jobs. Federal employment dropped 1,700. So much for that “over dependence” on the feds. Education, state and local, broke even for the year with no change after losing 8,300 jobs between May and June. Again, the figures are not seasonally adjusted. A good many of those jobs can be expected to return in August and September.
On the other hand, as economists like to say, the state now has three counties with more than 10% unemployment. Luna County (16.5% unemployed) and Mora (13.4%) continue to “lead.” McKinley County passed the mark to 10.1% unemployment during June.

Metro Abq Adds Jobs in June, Other Three Metros Lose

Metro Albuquerque added 3,200 wage jobs in the year from May 2012 to May 2013, the biggest year over year increase since 2007, the Department of Workforce Services reported Friday. The other news is that the state’s other three metro areas—Las Cruces, Santa Fe and Farmington—each lost 300 jobs, reducing the metro net gain to 2,300.
Statewide the increase was 7,800 jobs, or one percent. That means the 26 rural counties together found 5,500 more jobs during the year. It has been five years since New Mexico showed a one percent year over year increase, DWS said. The pace brings us back to what is regarded here as mediocre growth, something DWS did not say.
The one percent growth ties us with four other states for 32nd place in the national ranking of job growth. Only Wyoming and Alaska lost jobs during the May to May year.
Our neighbors were four of the top six states in job growth. Arizona was 6th with 2.1%; Colorado, 5th at 2.2%; Utah 3rd at 2.6%; and Texas 2nd at 2.7%.
The federal and local governments dropped 1,900 jobs during the year. State government added 1,100 jobs (Thank you, Gov. Martinez, I think) to reduce the overall government sector loss to 800. The state government education sector, about half of total state government, lost 400 jobs during the year.
Even as the manufacturing outlook improves a little nationwide, the sector suffers here. Manufacturing dropped 1,100 jobs statewide with more than 80% of the losses, or 900 jobs, coming in metro Albuquerque. Las Cruces and Santa Fe each lost 100 manufacturing jobs. DWS does not provide individual sector totals for Farmington, but the private sector lost 300 jobs in Farmington in the May to May year.
The three larger metro areas claim 20,300 manufacturing jobs, of 71% of the 28,400 jobs statewide. While manufacturing is small in total number of jobs at 28,400, it is an important member of the core or basic part of any area economy. In other words, Albuquerque’s manufacturing sector isn’t helping the state’s recovery one bit.
Leisure and hospitality (tourism) continued to lead sector growth statewide, followed construction (surprise), education and health services and financial.
Albuquerque’s construction sector added 1,200 jobs, just behind the 1,300 new tourism jobs.

Wages Jobs Grow One Percent, Wondrous, Amazing

The job news from the New Mexico economic was good in April, not statistically significant, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which released numbers today.
The labor force grew and the number of unemployed dropped, meaning that the economy absorbed the new potential workers plus a little.
The employment growth (seasonally adjusted and not wage jobs which are different from “employment”) was 10,200, or 1.2%, between April 2012 and April 2013. The labor force added 8,800. The unseasonally adjusted figures behaved about the same.
While I haven’t tracked this labor force / employment metric is detail, my sense is that the performance is fairly amazing given our performance for five or six years.
Wage job growth was one percent, a gain of 7,900, for the April to April year, the Department of Workforce Services reported today. It was April 2008, five years ago, when wage job growth last hit one percent, DWS said.
The big statewide sector turn was in construction with an 1,800 job gain, the best year over year performance for the sector since 2006. Leisure and hospitality continued to lead the sector performance with 2,500 more jobs since April 2012.
The professional and business services sectors lost another 1,500 jobs over the year, presumably mostly from defense contracting companies which means mostly Albuquerque and Santa Fe. I don’t think furloughs are shown in this figure because at least those folks furloughed for a few days each month are still working, depending on the definition of being a full-time employee.
Growth has resumed in educational and health services with an 1,800-job April to April increase. Financial activities added 1,700 jobs over the year, continuing the rapid expansion of the past few months.
State government added 1,600 jobs including 1,300 in education. The feds dropped 1,200 jobs. Say “sequester.”
Employment even grew in Bernalillo County with 4,725 more jobs bringing the total employed in the county to 287,740. Employment grew a few hundred in the other three metropolitan counties: Santa Fe, Dona Ana and San Juan. DWS will have wage job figures for the metros in a week or so.

Building Permits Way Down

Before the city of Albuquerque went to Web posting and associated fancy stuff, one could get a month's building permit data by the 10th or so of the following month. The report was a seven page spreadsheet, photocopied. Now the most recent building permit data I can find at www.cabq.com is for 2007. However, the figures somehow get to HousingEconomics.com, an arm of the National Association of Home Builders. The figures are in thousands and are for metro areas. Even getting metro Albuquerque figures is an accomplishment. I think five entities issue permits. Metro Albuquerque issued 860 permits for single family homes during the first four months of 2008, down 35% from 2007. New Mexico's metro areas are basically out of the apartment construction business with permits issued for all of 230 units so far this year.

SINGLE-FAMILY
YTD YTD YTD YEAR
Apr-08 Apr-07 PCT CHG Tot 2007

New Mexico 1.90 2.99 -36% 8.23
Albuquerque NM 0.86 1.32 -35% 3.70
Farmington NM 0.09 0.13 -33% 0.37
Las Cruces NM 0.33 0.59 -44% 1.37
Santa Fe NM 0.05 0.11 -54% 0.28