Economic diversity

Economists question state’s progress in broadening economy toward more varied private-sector employment

Here are a couple of goals that unite leaders in the state, regardless of party affiliation: Bring more jobs to New Mexico and diversify the state’s economy. It’s been something of a mantra since at least the Great Recession, which officially ended in summer 2009 but continues to traumatize the state’s economy. The recession, plus an overall loss of government jobs and a plunge in oil prices several years ago, has caused a clarion call to lure new businesses to New Mexico and to increase the share of private sector jobs in the state’s employment picture. So how have we been doing? When it comes to job growth, the number of non-farm jobs in the state has increased by 3.7 percent since the end of 2010, just before Gov. Susana Martinez took office, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That translates to 29,800 new jobs,

and that’s good news for the people hired to fill those positions and the businesses they frequent.

But job growth nationally for that period was more than three times higher, at 12 percent. And the total number of jobs in the state is still 2 percent below the number New Mexico had just before the recession started.

Diversification? It depends on whom you’re asking.

It’s not a pretty picture, according to two leading economists at the state’s largest universities.

While private sector jobs make up a larger share o employment pictu 2010, that has more to do with the government sector shrinking than it does creation of new jobs, said Jeff Mitchell, director of the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business & Economic Research.

“The reason why private sector jobs account for more of the total number of jobs is not because we’re creating private sector jobs,” he

MARLA BROSE/JOURNAL Matthew Christie sets a table at a Hotel Chaco restaurant. While hospitality-related jobs have been on the upswing in New Mexico, growth in the state’s overall private sector has been muted.

MARLA BROSE/JOURNAL Server Emma Nicholson outlines dessert options for customers at a restaurant in Hotel Chaco.

STEVE SINOVIC/FOR THE JOURNAL Lab technician Matt Garcia was among the new employees at Southwest Labs, an Albuquerque drug-testing business that opened in June. The state’s health services sector has seen a growing number of jobs.

ADOLPHE PIERRE-LOUIS/JOURNAL Melissa Yelton, a surgical tech at Lovelace Women’s Hosminimally pital, works with a surgical robot used invasive surgeries.