Unemployment continues to rise.

New Mexico’s October rate was 7.9% — up .2% over September. Over-the-year job ‘growth’ was -3.3% and that translated to a loss of about 27,800 jobs during the year. It is hard to recall that just two short years ago the unemployment rate was 3.5%.

The only areas of growth were health services, government and information (from our still-active movie industry).

Not to be outdone, Albuquerque’s rate was even worse at 8.2% — representing the same.2% increase see by the state as a whole. For the year, job losses totaled 14,800.

Only two areas showed growth in this region: health services and government.