Texas unemployment down, New Mexico unchanged

TEXAS

State labor officials say the Texas unemployment rate declined slightly in November to settle at 4.6 percent.

The Texas Workforce Commission on Friday said that compares to an October jobless rate of 4.7 percent. The nationwide jobless rate stood at 4.6 percent in November.

TWC officials say the Amarillo, Austin-Round Rock and Lubbock areas all had the lowest unemployment rate in Texas last month at 3.0 percent. The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area had the state’s highest jobless figure at 7.1 percent.

A TWC statement says Texas has added jobs in 19 of the past 20 months, with an estimated 210,800 seasonally adjusted jobs added over the past year.

NEW MEXICO

State labor officials say there was no change in New Mexico’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from October to November, but the percentage of people without jobs is up slightly from last year.

The Department of Workforce Solutions released the numbers Friday, saying the unemployment rate in November was 6.7 percent, up from 6.6 percent a year ago.

The national rate was 4.6 percent.

Labor officials say goods-producing industries in New Mexico have seen a decrease of more than 5 percent – or 5,100 jobs – over the last year.

Bright spots include education and health services, the fastest-growing private industry sector with a 6,000-job increase since November 2015.

State labor officials say employment growth in every month in 2016, apart from May, exceeded anything reported in the industry since January 2003.