NM jobless rate stuck at 6.2% inMay

State has fourth-highest unemployment in U.S.

New data from the U.S. Labor Department show New Mexico’s unemployment rate remained stagnant for the third month in a row and is still one of the highest in the nation.

The state’s jobless rate in May was 6.2 percent, according to data released Friday, the same rate as the department reported for March and April. The national unemployment rate dropped from 5 percent to 4.7 percent last month.

New Mexico has the fourthhighest unemployment rate in the country. The state with the highest rate is Alaska at 6.7 percent, followed by Illinois at 6.4 percent and Louisiana at 6.3 percent. West Virginia’s jobless rate was also 6.2 percent last month.

The figures also show that New Mexico, along with 43 other states, did not see a statistically significant change in employment between April and May. Employment in the state grew by 2,900 jobs, or 0.3 percent, between May 2015 and May 2016. This was an improvement over April’s over-the-year growth, which was revised to an increase of 1,800 jobs.

Much of the rest of the country saw unemployment fall to very low levels. The department reported that 16 states had jobless rates below the national percentage. In Arkansas, the unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 3.8 percent. The lowest rate in May was in South Dakota at 2.5 percent.

Joy Forehand, deputy cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, noted that although the unemployment rate has remained flat in recent months, it has decreased significantly from the 6.6 percent rate a year ago.

“We’ve seen education and health services continue to drive job growth in the state,” she said. The sector added 5,200 jobs over the past year, an increase of 3.9 percent.

Forehand said employment in the mining industry has been volatile, although not as much as expected. Recently released data from the state show a loss of 6,500 jobs compared to the same time in 2015, a decrease of 25.3 percent.