I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
New Mexico’s unemployment rate spiked at the end of 2009–from 7.8 percent in November to 8.3 percent in December 2009—marking a 22 year high. The rate was 4.7 percent last year. Only four of the state’s 13 industries have seen job growth over the past year: education and health care, government, and the film industry.
The national unemployment rate remained at 10 percent in December, according to a New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions report. Our unemployment ranking nationally is 28th highest, with all 50 states reporting year-over-year job loss.
Despite these numbers, New Mexico is still in a slow recovery from a statistical low point in August, the report states, with the December numbers representing a normal “step back” in the natural course of an economic recovery cycle. Since August, there were three consecutive months of employment increases before the dip in December:
Three good months and one not-so-good month is an improvement from the consistently dismal results posted previously. However, earlier losses are such that we are still down more than 25,000 jobs on the year, and it will be a number of years before employment returns to pre-recession levels. The recent decline in the number of jobs is the worst the state has seen in modern times.
This is bad news considering that the state’s unemployment insurance fund is being rapidly depleted. A new project of ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism Web site, is tracking the hit to unemployment insurance nationwide. New Mexico isn’t in the dire straits some other states are suffering through, but the trend doesn’t look good.
