Unemployment in the United States stands at 3.6%, which is near historic lows and an impressive recovery from the spike that hit the economy because of COVID-19. Some states have figures close to 2%, which means the job markets are particularly tight. To comment that employers are having trouble finding people in the states only points out the obvious.
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One state stands out for its high jobless rate. New Mexico’s unemployment rate, at 5.1%, is the highest in the nation. In May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only nine states and the District of Columbia had jobless rates above the national figure.
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New Mexico not only suffers from high unemployment. It is also fairly poor. The national median household income is $67,521. New Mexico’s is $50,882, which puts it among other poor states like Kentucky and West Virginia.
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The federal and state governments are the largest employers in New Mexico, followed by Walmart. Several health care systems are also near the top of this list. The state has no big high-tech employers, which puts it at a distinct disadvantage for offering state residents well-paying jobs.
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New Mexico will be particularly hard hit by inflation. Relatively poor families already are squeezed by high fuel and food prices. And these families have no protection for what certainly will be even higher prices later this year.
This State Still Has High Unemployment and a Tough Future
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Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
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