New Mexico’s job market is improving, but our work-force participation rates remain depressed

New Mexico’s job market is finally showing signs of life in the wake of the “Great Recession” as new federal data presented here by the Rio Grande Foundation show:

Obviously, New Mexico’s job situation remains far worse than it is in any of our neighboring states, but at least there is a pulse. Unfortunately, not much was done during the recent legislative session to set the stage for continued job and economic growth, so perhaps it was inevitable that New Mexico would see some job growth after years of the State economy being flat on its back.

As the chart below clearly shows, workforce participation in New Mexico lags the national average badly (by nearly 10 percentage points). And, while the national rate has declined in the wake of the “Great Recession,” New Mexico’s has quite literally collapsed with only slight improvement having taken place since 2011.

Obviously, there are some systemic issues with New Mexico’s economy and the New Mexico Senate in particular blocked any and all significant reforms.