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Friday, March 12, 2010
N.M. Jobless Rate Hits 22-Year High
By Michael G. Murphy
Journal Business Editor
New Mexico's jobless rate bounced up to 8.5 percent in January — a 22-year high — rising from 8.2 percent in December and soaring above 5.9 percent a year ago. Newly revised data also show the hemorrhaging of jobs this past year was the "worst the state has seen in modern times," the Department of Workforce Solutions reported Thursday.
Job growth between January 2009 and January 2010 was a negative 3.3 percent.
"New Mexico's (job growth) ranking among the states is not yet known, but our performance at this time is below the national average," spokeswoman Carrie Moritomo said.
"Unlike previous national recessions, this downturn has impacted New Mexico nearly as much as it has the nation as a whole."
The national unemployment stands at 9.7 percent.
New Mexico's construction industry has bled 14,500 jobs since January 2009; mining was down 3,400 jobs over the year; and manufacturing dropped 2,800 jobs, the department said.
In the past, government jobs, along with private health services, often showed increases while jobs in other industries disappeared, but even the government sector lost 200 jobs in the 12 months ending January, despite the federal government hiring for Census 2010.
New Mexico's poor jobs performance is a function of the national recession, weak natural gas and oil prices that make the situation worse in energy-producing states, and some unique job losses that would have happened regardless of economic conditions, Larry Waldman, senior economist with the University of New Mexico Bureau of Business and Economic Research, told the Journal on Thursday.
Intel cut 2,600 jobs over the past three years in New Mexico that it no longer needed after it completed a capital upgrade in its Sandoval County plant and changed its product mix, Waldman said. Several hundred jobs were lost after Eclipse Aviation shut down when it couldn't solve production problems before its financing ran out, he said.
Intel still employs 3,300 people here.
New Mexico lost government jobs in 1982 and 1998 as well, Waldman said.
"Given the state of finances, it's not that unusual that government employment would decline," he said. "That's a symptom of the recession and declining budgets."
Workforce Solutions said updated methodology it is using to more accurately paint the employment picture shows job growth has been much weaker over the past several months than originally thought.
New Mexico's economy has been on a downward slope since job growth peaked at 3.5 percent in June 2006, the department said.
Starting in late 2008, the rate of decline escalated. November 2008 was the first time in more than 17 years that job growth in the state turned negative. State job growth was negative in each successive month, and the negative numbers became larger and larger. Job growth bottomed out at minus 4.9 percent between September and October 2009.
The rate of over-the-year job growth, comparing January 2010 with January 2009, was negative 3.3 percent, representing a loss of 26,700 jobs, Moritomo said.
Meanwhile, the state's unemployment rate rose sharply during 2009 and may be set for further increases in 2010, she said. The rate is up significantly from a record low of 3.4 percent reached in mid-2007.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the Albuquerque metropolitan statistical area was 8.9 percent in January, up from 8.4 percent in December. The rate in the Las Cruces MSA was 8.4 percent in January 2010, down from 8.5 percent the previous month.
The rate in Santa Fe was 7.7 percent for January 2010, up from 7.1 percent in December, and the rate for Farmington was 10.4 percent in January 2010, up from 9.8 percent in December.
Journal staff writer Winthrop Quigley contributed to this report
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