NM Adds Nearly 16,000 Jobs Over the Past Year

New Mexico’s job picture in February had its best showing in nearly a decade, with employment growing at 2 percent or 15,900 jobs compared to the same month a year earlier, according to the state Department of Workforce Solutions.
February’s increase marks the first time that over-the-year job growth in New Mexico has reached the 2 percent threshold since December 2006, when it was 2.4 percent, said department spokeswoman Joy Forehand.
The “New Mexico Ready to Work” job fair at the Albuquerque Convention Center on August 22, 2014. (Dean Hanson/Albuquerque Journal)
“This is New Mexico’s 30th consecutive month of over-the-year employment growth and the most substantial growth the state has seen since December 2006,” according to a release from the agency. “This is also the first month since May 2006 that no industry (employment sector) has posted an over-the-year loss in employment.”
“We’re not terribly surprised,” said Jeffrey Mitchell of the Bureau of Business & Economic Research at the University of New Mexico about the strength of February’s job growth rate. “The numbers have been trending like this since about July. I think the news has generally been positive.”
“The strategy of diversifying our economy is working,” said state Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela in response to the report. “There’s still work to be done. We need to stay the course.”
The unemployment rate in February dropped from 6.7 percent to 6 percent, year over year, although it ticked up from 5.9 percent in January. The national rate for February is 5.5 percent.
The February job growth rate follows a comparatively strong January, when the department reported jobs grew statewide at a rate of 1.3 percent. It usually takes three months to set a trend, Forehand said.
“We’ll wait to see what the March numbers turn out to be,” she said.
The first over-the-year job loss was registered in New Mexico in November 2008 and continued unchecked for the next two years, according to historical data provided by Forehand. Monthly job gains and losses took turns from early 2011 to September 2012, when the current streak of 30 months of consecutive job growth began.
For most of the current streak, New Mexico’s job growth rate has been less than 1.5 percent, often ranking among the lowest in the country.
New Mexico’s 2 percent over-the-year job growth rate in February holds true using both not seasonally adjusted data from the Department of Workforce Solutions and seasonally adjusted numbers from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Seasonally adjusting data basically smooths out seasonal fluctuations over the year.
Based on the BLS seasonally adjusted numbers, New Mexico’s job growth rate was 20th highest in the country in February.
New Mexico’s 2 percent rate, while comparatively strong, still trailed February job growth rates of 2.8 percent in Arizona, 3.3 percent in Colorado, 3.1 percent in Texas and 4.2 percent in Utah, according to the BLS numbers. Only adjacent Oklahoma had a lower rate in the region at 1.4 percent.
Friday’s news release did not contain a breakdown of employment and job growth numbers for the Albuquerque metro area, which has trailed the state as a whole in the modest job recovery. In January, for example, the metro saw over-the-year job growth of 0.9 percent compared to the average 1.3 percent increase statewide.
Terri Cole, president and CEO of the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce, said her impression, based on feedback from chamber members, was, “The economy is still challenging but it is better this year than the same time last year.”
In its monthly news release on employment, the state tracks 13 employment sectors, one for government and 12 private sectors.
The most dynamic employment sector for the past several years, education and health services, accounted for one out of every four new jobs created between February 2014 and February 2015. The state’s lagging manufacturing sector was the big surprise in the February numbers, posting an over-the-year gain of 300 jobs.
By: Richard Metcalf (Albuquerque Journal)
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