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.

Metro Job Growth Lags State

Arizona ties with New Mexico’s 4.9% unemployment rate the highest in the nine-state southwest quadrant of the country. New Mexico and Arizona place fourth among the states for unemployment rates, behind Alaska, Washington, D.C., and Mississippi. New Mexico’s 2.6% growth in jobs from July 208 to July 2019 (that’s 21,700 new jobs) lies in the middle of the nine-state pack. These numbers come from the July issue of the Labor Market Review newsletter that was released today by the Department of Workforce Solutions.
Metro area job growth continues behind the state’s rate. Albuquerque added 5,000 jobs (a nice number, for sure) over the year, but only a 1.3% gain. The growth was in leisure and hospitality (+2,900 jobs or 6.4%), education and health services (+3,200 jobs or 5%), and professional and business services (+2,800 jobs, or 4.6%). Except for other services (+100 jobs, big deal) every other sector lost jobs.
Las Cruces added 700 jobs, year-over-year, a one percent gain. The Santa Fe growth was 0.3% which meant 200 jobs. Leisure and hospital brought 600 jobs.
The newsletter offered a comprehensive at oil and gas in the state. The article is far too long to even summarize here, but it is worth a look. See https://www.dws.state.nm.us/Portals/0/DM/LMI/lmr_July_19.pdf. The general topics are wages, employment, and production.

Unemployment Rate Hngs Around 4.9%

New Mexico’s unemployment rate has hung around 4.9% during the past year. It was 4.9% in June, 5% in May and 4.8% in June 2018. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the state added 14,400 jobs, a (nice for New Mexico) 1.7% increase that the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics considers statistically significant. Arizona wage jobs grew 2.8% during the June to June year; Utah, 2.7%; and Colorado 1.9%.
While I’m not quite sure of the arithmetic, that seems to mean that of the 25,000 added to the labor force over the year, 23,000 found employment (which is different from a wage job) because total unemployment went up 2,000.
Leisure and hospital led the sector growth, up 5,300 jobs or 5.3%, not seasonally adjusted. Construction added 3,000 jobs, a 6.3% increase.
Mining grew by 2,000, up 8%. Employment in Eddy County, with Lea the heart of oil production, grew by 2,700 to total 33,153 in June. Lea County added 800 jobs for employment of 29,440.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the June job summary this afternoon. DWS will provide more details in a week.

NM Adds 20,000 Jobs. Lea Now 3rd in Oil Production

New Mexico’s 2.4%, 19,900 person, seasonally adjusted employment growth for the year between December 2017 and December 2018 placed us among the 40 states with statistically significant by the reckoning of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. December employment was 855,700, the BLS said.
The largest year over year unemployment rate decline occurred in New Mexico (-1.3 percentage points).
Summary job statistics were released this afternoon by the BLS and by New Mexico’s Department of Workforce Solutions.
Leisure and hospitality continued to lead New Mexico’s sector growth with 8,400 new wage jobs. That’s 41% of the 20,400 seasonally unadjusted wage jobs added during the year. Professional and business services grew by 3,400 jobs with 2,600 more in construction and 1,000 in mining, an especially good showing, no doubt finally reflecting the rapid growth in oil and gas production. Health care and social services was up 1,900 jobs.
The Lea County labor force expand by 3,200 during the year to 30,900 with employment up 3,400. Eddy County shows the same sort of growth.
Lea County is the nation’s number three oil producing county, the Hobbs News Sun reported recently. Eddy County is seventh,
Arizona’s unemployment rate was 4.8% in December, a tenth of a point ahead of New Mexico’s 4.7%. Arizona’s 2018 unemployment outlook from the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona forecast 4.6% unemployment with 3.8% in 2019 as “Arizona hits the accelerator,” EBRC’s economic outlook said last month.
The unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage point in December for Arizona and New Mexico, the BLS said. In Colorado and Oregon the rate was up 0.2 percentage point each. The Colorado increase took the unemployment rate all of 3.5%. In Utah, the unemployment rate is even less: 3.2%.

Abq Leads Job Production

Albuquerque continues to lead the job production parade among New Mexico’s metro areas. Wage jobs in the Duke City increased by 10,000 between November 2017 and November 2018.
The numbers, which are preliminary, are in the Labor Market Review newsletter, released late today by the Department of Workforce Solutions.
Albuquerque grabbed 55% of the 18,100 new wage jobs reported statewide (a 2.1% increase) for the November to November year. These preliminary numbers will take a big in early March when a cleaner set of statistics are plugged in. For now, though, the good cheer of 2%+ job growth will carry into the new year.
The other three metro areas did grow, just a lot less than Albuquerque. In alphabetical order, it was Farmington, +400 jobs, 0.8%; Las Cruces, +500 jobs, 0.7%; Santa Fe, +500 job, 0.8%.
The big growth for Albuquerque came in professional and business services, up 3,500, and leisure and hospitality, up 2,000.
Government added 2,200 jobs with 1,400, or 64%, in state government as Gov. Susana Martinez prepared to end her eight years in office.

Unemployment Rate Drop Leads Nation

New Mexico’s wage job production continues to rock along, at least in Albuquerque and the rural counties.
Statewide, there was a net of 23,100 wage jobs that appeared between October 2017 and October 2018, a 2.8% increase. Albuquerque scored the same 2.8% growth which meant 11,000 new metro Duke City jobs over the year.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the numbers yesterday in the Labor Market Review newsletter.
Seasonally adjusted, our job gain was 2.7%. Utah appears to have tied Washington with a 3.3% gain that was second nationally. (Nevada led.) Colorado was “down” with us with a 2.7% gain. New Mexico’s seasonally adjusted year-over-year drop in the unemployment rate—from 6% to 4.6% led the states.
Among the other three metro areas, Santa Fe did OK with 800 new jobs, a 1.3% increase. Farmington gained 100 jobs, Las Cruces lost 200.
Among the sectors, statewide leisure and hospitality (mostly tourism) led with 7,400 new jobs, year over year, a 7.7% gain. (Lament: Oh, those low paying jobs…) Professional and business services followed with a 5.2% gain and 5,500 jobs. At 5.7%, transportation, warehousing and utilities were another big percentage gainer. The sector added 1,400 jobs.
Government added a net of 500 jobs. The gain came in local government, up 2,000. State government offset by losing 1,200 jobs. State government added 1,300 jobs in metro Albuquerque.

Eddy and Lea Counties and Metro Abq Lead September Wage Job Growth

New Mexico continued a strong job performance in the year from September 2017 to September 2018. The state added 19,600 wage jobs for a 2.3% increase over the year.
The Department of Workforce Services released detailed September job numbers late this afternoon in its Labor Market Review newsletter.
Metro Albuquerque kept pace with the state, scoring 2.3% wage job growth for the year, the result of 9,000 new jobs. The Albuquerque performance was good for 46% of the state’s net new wage jobs.
Job growth in the state’s other three metro areas shuffled along with Farmington the unlikely “hot spot,” reporting 1.2% growth (600 jobs), Las Cruces with 0.4% growth (300 jobs) and no change in Santa Fe’s job levels for the year.
Te real growth was in Eddy and Lea counties, both back to booming with Permian Basin oil and gas production. For the counties we must count “employment,” which is a bit different from wage jobs, but close enough for our purposes. Eddy County employment was 30,244 during September 2018. That’s 9% growth for the September to September year and an employment increase of 2,506. Lea County employment grew by 2,353, a 9.1% increase to 28,127.
Combined, metro Albuquerque and Lea and Eddy counties grabbed 71% of the year-over-year growth.
A curiosity is that, statewide, mining (and logging) show a one-year of a mere 100 jobs. Go figure.
The growing sectors across the state were leisure and hospitality (+5,100 or 5.2%), professional and business services (+4,300 or 4.1%) and construction (+3,700 or 8%).
Professional and business services (+4,200 or 6.9%) led the metro Albuquerque year-over-year growth, followed by construction (+1,200 or 5.1%). Note that the professional and business services growth outside Albuquerque was 100 jobs.
In the newsletter, DWS passed along some demographic estimates for 2017 from the Census Bureau.
At 48.8% Hispanic, New Mexico isn’t quite a majority Hispanic, but is much more Hispanic than the nation which is 18.1% Hispanic. We are also 3.5 percentage points more “white only,” 75.8% to 72.3%.
A compared to the nation, New Mexico is a bit younger, with both more children under 14 and more adults over 65.
We move less often than does the rest of the nation, but it seems that the people who do move were born in New Mexico. Natives to the state (meaning people born in New Mexico) comprise 53.4% of New Mexicans as compared to 58.2% of the nation. It’s those young families who leave seeking opportunity and the rest resting on the claimed wisdom of centuries of family residence.

Albuquerque: 6,900 New Wage Jobs; Las Cruces 1,200 Fewer

The continuing mystery of Las Cruces is one headline from the new issue of the Labor Market Review newsletter released late this afternoon by the Department of Workforce Solutions.
These numbers are not seasonally adjusted unless otherwise noted.
Wage jobs in Las Cruces dropped 1,200, or 1.7%, in the year between August 2017 and August 2018.
Metro Albuquerque scored nearly half the state’s 16,100 new wage jobs with a 6,900 job increase, or 2%, for the August to August year.
Metro Santa Fe (Santa Fe County) added 1,100 jobs with metro Farmington (San Juan County) showing a nice change with 900 new jobs, a 1.9% increase.
For the month between July and August, Albuquerque’s net was not much, a job increase of 100, which DWS observed in droll economistese, “represented zero percent growth after rounding.”
Construction lost 800 jobs, leisure and hospitality was down 400 with finance down 300. Professional and business services added 400 jobs; retail, 200; education and health services, 200; and information and manufacturing, both up 100. State government saved the day with 700 additional jobs.
For the year in Albuquerque, professional and business services drove the growth with 4,100 new jobs, a 6.7% increase. State government grew by 1,900 jobs.
In Santa Fe the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.7% in July and 3.8% in August. Hardly anyone in Santa Fe wanting a job is unemployed.
For the month, the number of wage jobs dropped 800 in Santa Fe with the losses in the private sector. Over the year, leisure and hospitality added 800 jobs, a 7.1% increase. Education and health services added 400 jobs, for 3.7% growth.
In Las Cruces, government added 1,300 jobs and total wage jobs grew by 1,600. For year, government lost 1,300 jobs.

Job Growth Slips from 2.2% in July to 1.9% for August

Distracted, again. The Department of Workforce Solutions released the initial August job numbers on Friday, September 21. Here are those numbers.
Wage job growth between August 2017 and August 2018 slipped from July with the percentage growth, 1.9%, down from 2.2% for the July to July year, and the 16,900 job increase was down from 17,900 for July. The unemployment rate, 4.6% in August, continued to drop. The rate was 6% in August 2017. That’s almost a 25% drop in a year. Nice.
Primary sectors all grew nicely. Leisure and hospitality against led the sector job production with 5,500 jobs, a 5.5% increase. The percentage growth was 6.6% in July with 6,500 new jobs. I stick with the theory that the leisure and hospitality growth has much more to do with the national economic health and with the performance of New Mexico’s neighbors such as Utah and Colorado, which are booming or close to it. Those resident are bringing some of their spare money here.
Professional and business services added 4,000 jobs for 3.8% growth. Construction gained 2,300 jobs, or 5%. The smaller mining sector added 700 jobs for 3.3% growth. Even manufacturing added 700 jobs for a 3.8% increase.
Transportation, warehousing and utilities added 1,700 jobs, a nice 7% increase, possibly in part reflecting drilling growth in Lea and Eddy counties; you’ve got transport all that petroleum somehow.
Arizona’s 4.6% August unemployment rate tied New Mexico. West Virginia, Mississippi and Louisiana have pushed ahead of New Mexico in unemployment ranking. Alaska retains the nation’s highest rate with 6.7% followed by the District of Columbia.

Job Growth, Much Improved, Remains Well Behind Neighboring States

Wage jobs grew 2.2%, or 8,600, in Albuquerque for the year between July 2017 and July 2018. That was the same percentage growth turned in by the entire state for the year.
New Mexico’s 2.2% year over year increase tied for 15th placed nationally with Massachusetts. That said, our neighbors remain well ahead. Utah’s 3.9% job growth led the nation. Texas grew 3.2%, Colorado, 3.1% and Arizona, 2.7%.
The figures come from the July issue of the Labor Market Review, the newsletter of the Department of Workforce Solutions, which was released yesterday afternoon.
For the state’s other three metro areas, well, not so much. Santa Fe added 1,000 jobs for 1.6% growth. Farmington added 300, a 0.6% increase for the year.
Las Cruces wage employment shrank by 700 jobs, or 1.0%.
Professional and business services led the Albuquerque growth with a 6.1% increase, or 3,700 jobs. With a 7.3% increase that meant 1,700 new jobs, construction led the percentage growth.
Leisure and hospitality, which led statewide sector growth with 6,500 jobs, or 6.6%, brought only 900 of those jobs to metro Albuquerque.
The Las Cruces job losses come in the face of firms around the Santa Teresa port of entry hiring as fast as possible. Just over half the Santa Teresa workers come from El Paso, a function of proximity and El Paso’s larger labor pool.
Las Cruces has been in a job loss mode for most of the past 18 months. Government seems to have carried the burden of producing those job losses.
Leisure and hospitality led Santa Fe’s growth with 800 new jobs over the year, a 7% increase.

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.

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.

Jobs Growth Breaks 2% Barrier. Employment Percentage Stays Low

Year over year wage job growth cracked the 2% barrier in June. This is a major hurdle; 2% jobs growth pretty much doesn’t happen in the state. The June 2017 to June 2018 year saw 17,300 new wage jobs for 2.1% growth, on a not seasonally adjusted basis. With adjustment, the growth was 1.5%.
The private sector provided 15,900 jobs with 1,400 in the public sector. The government jobs came from local government, up 3,700 jobs including 2,200 in education. The state dropped 1,500 jobs and the feds lost 800.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the June job figures this afternoon.
At 0.2 percentage points, New Mexico tied Pennsylvania and South Carolina for the largest drop in unemployment, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even with the drop, New Mexico keeps third place in unemployment rates with 4.9% unemployed. Alaska kept the unemployment rate lead with 7.1%. Washington, D.C., has 5.6%. With 4.7% unemployment, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Washington (state) are closing on New Mexico.
New Mexico’s labor force has grown by 25,000 since May 2017.
Leisure and hospital was the big sector gainer with 4,900 new wages jobs from June 2017 to June 2018. Professional and business services followed with 4,300 new jobs. The two sectors have substantial numbers of basic industry jobs.
Trade, transportation, and utilities chipped in with 2,200 new jobs. Financial businesses followed with 1,500 jobs.
Another June milestone was reporting zero counties with more than 10% unemployment. Luna County, the longtime carrier of the 10% plus unemployment standard, somehow found 1,150 new jobs between May and June that dropped the county unemployment rate to nine percent.
Lea and Eddy counties provided 4,400 jobs, year over year, with 2,300 in Lea and 2,100 in Eddy. Thank you Permian Basin.
My wet blanket for the month is the employment to population ratio. For 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, New Mexico held at third from the bottom with just 53.9% of the population employed. West Virginia remains the lowest at 50.5% followed by Mississippi at 53.1%.
North Dakota has 69.6 percent of its people employed, followed by Minnesota at 53.9% and Minnesota at 53.9%.

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?).

Albuquerque Continues to Lead Metro Job Production

Together New Mexico’s three smaller metro areas lost wage 800 jobs in the year between April 2017 and April 2018. The Department of Workforce Solutions released the detailed job report today in the Labor Market Review newsletter. The job totals are not seasonally adjusted.
Las Cruces was the leader, down 1,400 jobs, or 1.9%. Farmington chipped in with another 200 lost jobs, or 0.2%. Santa Fe made up almost half the loses with an increase over the year of 700 jobs or 1.1%
Albuquerque remained the metro jobs producer with an increase of 4,900 jobs, or 1.2%.
As reported last week, the state’s wage job total grew 1.2%, or 10,000 jobs. The 1.2% job increase tied three Deep-Sough states for 24th place nationally—Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Our neighbors continued in the top ten. Utah led with a 3.4% job increase from April 2017 to April 2018. Texas was fourth, Colorado, sixth, Arizona, seventh.
The Las Cruces year-over-year loses were 86% public sector, or 1,200 jobs. Of those 1,200, state government lost 1,000 with local and federal government each dropping 100. Leisure and hospitality lost 400 Las Cruces jobs; education and health services gained 400.
Given that, statewide, the state government education sector lost 1,500 jobs, a guess is that the Las Cruces loses were at New Mexico State University.
In metro Albuquerque, the only sector of size to lose jobs was education and health services, down 1,600 to 63,300, keeping it the metro area’s largest job sector and 200 jobs ahead of professional and business services which gained 3,000 to total 63,100.
In Santa Fe, only leisure and hospitality, up 700 jobs, added more than 200 jobs.

Unemployment Rates Drops to 5.8%; Still Second Nationally

During February New Mexico’s unemployment rate continued to go lower, dropping 5.8% from 6.4% in February 2017. The change was enough to get the “statistically significant” label from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state still ranks second nationally in the unemployment rate, but is widening the gap with Alaska, the leader.
The Department of Workforce Solutions released the new BLS numbers yesterday.
New Mexico’s 0.1 point drop in the unemployment rate between January and February made the state one of seven with an unemployment rate decline for the month. However nice, the drop did not rate significance.
New Mexico’s labor force grew by about 7,000 during the year from February 2017 to February 2018, going from 928,003 to 935,149. The number of unemployed dropped from 59,775 to 53,927.
Construction was the sector leader in job additions with 3,500. These numbers are not seasonally adjusted.
Among growing basic industries, leisure and hospitality led with 2,300. Professional and business services added 1,500 with 1,000 more in manufacturing (a big switch for a sector that has been disappearing) and 700 more in mining.
Financial activities added 1,500 jobs for the year. Education and health care show no change, another big switch for a sector that a couple of years ago accounted for nearly all the state’s minimal job growth.
Government gained 300 jobs over the year, a net figure that includes 1,000 fewer education jobs. State government education (universities) lost 800 jobs with 200 gone from local government education (the public schools).

Employment Rate Drops to 5.9% as Primary Sectors Add Jobs

Even perennially laggard mining/logging sector gained 700 jobs on a not seasonally adjusted basis between during the year between January 2017 and January 2018. The Department of Workforce Solutions released the initial January job report today.
A number of key sectors added jobs during the year, suggesting, just maybe, that the New Mexico economy is improving, though not a lot on a percentage basis. The figures released today include revisions done as part of what DWS calls the annual benchmarking process. We will know more in a week. That’s when DWS will release its Labor Market Review that will discuss the revisions in detail.
Manufacturing, the other main laggard among the basic industry sectors, added 800 jobs for 3.1% growth.
Construction led the sector performers on a year over year not seasonally adjusted basis with 4,100 more jobs, a 9.6% increase. This too will pass.
Leisure and hospitality led primary sectors with 1,300 more jobs, up 1.4%, followed by professional and business services, up 1.2% or 1,200 jobs.
The state’s unemployment rate dropped from 6.5% to 5.9% during the past year, a seasonally adjusted change considered statistically significant by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which produces the numbers. The labor force grew by about 5,500 during the year while unemployment dropped by 5,500.

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.

Albuquerque Dominates Job Growth

On a year-over-year basis in October, Albuquerque continued to dominate wage job growth in the state, and those gains, as reported last week, were fairly decent for New Mexico. The Department of Workforce Solutions released detailed October job numbers yesterday.
Metro Albuquerque added 6,000 wage jobs on a seasonally unadjusted basis between October 2016 and October 2017. The 1.5% annual growth was just a hair behind the state’s 1.6%. For the month between September and October, Albuquerque added 1,900 jobs, all thanks to government, which grew by 2,000 jobs including 1,600 from state government.
For the year, Albuquerque’s growth was private sector, led 1,400 finance jobs (doing what, I wonder?), a eight percent jump from sector’s low base of 18,400 jobs. Professional and business services and education and health care both added 1,300 jobs. Construction and leisure and hospitality (tourism) each added 1,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality lost 1,300 jobs during September due, I presume, to seasonal reductions.
For Santa Fe and Las Cruces, local government in Las Cruces, down 500 jobs for the year, was the only sector with job movement (up or down) of more than 200.

NM Adds 13,200 Jobs

Statistical significance appeared in the performance of the New Mexico economy during October, all of it in a good way.
Employment grew by 13,200 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis between October 2016 and October 2017. That’s 1.6% growth, fairly amazing all in all. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the state’s Department of Workforce Solutions released summary job statistics earlier this afternoon. The BLS makes the judgments about significance.
Also getting the significance blessing was the year-over-year unemployment rate drop from 6.8% to 6.1%. The unemployment rate remains two points above the national 4.1% unemployment, which also is a significant difference. Our unemployment rate remains third nationally behind Alaska (7.2%) and the District of Columbia (6.6%).
The gain was 13,100 wage jobs on a not seasonally adjusted basis. That split among 13,900 new private sector jobs and loss of 800 government jobs.
The federal government added 200 jobs over the year. The state netted a 200-job loss including 300 fewer in education. Local government dropped 800 jobs including 100 in education.
The sector gainers were led by leisure and hospitality (tourism), up 4,000 jobs, professional and business services, up 3,500 jobs, and construction, presumably aided by the Facebook project outside Los Lunas and up 2,100 jobs.
Education added 1,400 jobs. Retail trade, transportation and finance each gained 1,100 jobs over the year.
Mining continued the losses, down 800 jobs over the year.