Fewer people were looking for work in New Mexico during September as compared to September 2013, but more were working which meant the unemployment rate went down. That lower rate—6.6% down from 7.2% in September 2013—got the first attention in this morning’s news release from the Department of Workforce Solutions.
DWS attention then moved to the year-over-year increase of 6,400 wage jobs, or 0.8%.
Compared to other states, New Mexico’s September job performance, neither year-over-year nor between August and September, did not stand out, meaning the changes were not statistically significant.
On a seasonally unadjusted basis, New Mexico’s labor force went from 924,400 in September 2013 to 918,700 in September 2014. That drop of 5,700 was a 0.62% decline.
Our neighbors did better. Colorado, with less than three times the number of New Mexico’s wage jobs, added more than ten times the number of jobs, year over year (a seasonally adjusted 67,400 as compared to 6,400). Arizona, home to 2.6 million wage jobs in September or 112,700 jobs, “only” added 51,600 jobs for the year or just eight times the New Mexico total.
Selected positive sector performance, courtesy of DWS, is education and health services (+4,500); finance (+2,300); retail (+1,900); mining (+1,600); information (+800). Selected sectors losing jobs are manufacturing (-2,300); government (-1,800); professional and business services (-1,300).
The retail performance adds to the mystery of the state economy. Expanding retail suggests that people have more money to spend and that suggests increased employment. It will be interesting next week when the metro numbers are released to see the source of the retail improvement. Metro or rural?
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