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.
While a New Mexico Workforce Solutions Department report showed the state ranked last in job growth from April 2010 to April 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics measured the state’s unemployment rate dropping from 8.6 percent to 7.3 percent. Joey Peters of the Santa Fe Reporter explains why the state numbers might be wrong:
They’re probably wrong,” Jeff Mitchell, a senior economist with the Bureau of Business & Economic Research (BBER) at the University of New Mexico, tells SFR. “It could be a sampling error.”
The Workforce Department numbers show that between April of 2010 and April 2011, New Mexico nonfarm employment dropped 0.3 percent, with the largest losses in construction, information and personal and business services.
But the key to the decline, Mitchell says, is the Workforce Department reporting a 6,000 job loss between last September and October in the professional business and service sector. “In that one month you see about 8 percent of jobs lobbed off that one industry,” Mitchell says.
The funny thing isn’t that 6,000 is an unlikely monthly labor shift for a state with a total working population of roughly 800,000.
Whatever the exact number, unemployment remains painfully high, and likely higher than measured counting those who have dropped out of the workforce or have accepted part-time employment. And certainly it is far above the natural rate of five percent.
