New Mexico, Santa Fe-area unemployment rates decrease again in March

Apr. 29—Unemployment rates in both the county and state continue to drop, signaling a busy tourist season ahead when more people find work.

That's according to New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions data for March, which shows the unemployment rate last month in the state was 3.8% — a drop from 3.9% in February — and a nonseasonally adjusted rate of 2.7% in Santa Fe County.

Reilly White, an economist and associate professor of finance with the University of New Mexico's Anderson School of Management, said the county's decrease from 3.2% in February signals a fluctuation in unemployment levels that usually occurs in March and April, following what are usually considered peak unemployment periods.

"Month-to-month fluctuations in a city the size of Santa Fe can look significant but have more to do with seasonal changes in workers," White said. "Santa Fe often has two peak periods of high unemployment each year — in late winter after the tourist season ends and again in [the] summer during the height of the tourist season when we see an influx of workers looking for work."

For the county, the unemployment rate this year has continued to decrease from January, when it stood at 3.5%. And in the state, the rate has dropped from 4% at the start of the year.

Santa Fe is one of about a dozen counties in the state showing unemployment rates under 3%. Some of the others are in southeastern New Mexico, where oil and gas jobs are a significant part of the local economy.

New Mexico's unemployment rate ranked 32nd-lowest in the country, tied with Arizona and Ohio. Neighboring Texas ranked 35th with a rate of 3.9% and Colorado had a rate of 3.7%, good enough for 31st. North Dakota, as was the case in February, had the lowest rate of unemployment at 2%, according to federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

But county rates in New Mexico are not seasonally adjusted, meaning attempts to remove the "seasonal effects of unemployment" usually found in state unemployment rates are not done. With seasonally adjusted numbers, White said, a change is made "by adding or subtracting a certain percentage to the actual job numbers to account for the usual ups and downs that happen at different times of the year."

White said both numbers, though, can be useful to look at when trying to understand trends.

"Both sets of data are useful — seasonal adjustment makes it easier to see month-to-month changes in employment caused by the economy," he said. "Unadjusted numbers can show how unemployment varies naturally due to holidays, events and seasonal effects."

The nation's job market remains robust, and that's no different in New Mexico. In March, the state had an estimated 931,480 employed people.

"A recent study noted that perhaps half of the job growth we've seen in the last year was driven by higher immigration — both documented and undocumented," White said.

New Mexico, though, continues to have one of the nation's lowest labor force participation rates, which measures the number of people actively engaged in the workforce either through employment or by seeking work. In March, it stood at 57.2%, making it the fourth-lowest in the country.

"There [are] a lot of reasons for this. Some of these are demographic [such as] high numbers of retirees [lowering] the participation rate," White said. "We've also seen increases in the number of New Mexicans on disability, and New Mexico has one of the highest rates in the country of women with young children who are not participating in the labor force."