Sources & References
Metro Job Market Pulse · NM NONMETROPOLITAN AREA · October 2026
Every advertised-pay, job-posting and industry figure in this briefing comes from WageScape's own database of active job postings. The sources below back the external facts cited in the written analysis.
Sources cited in this report
Key Indicators
National unemployment rate at 4.1%
Bureau of Labor Statistics — National Employment Situation Report, August 2026
This Month's Takeaways
Rural NM counties averaged -4.3% employment growth
Bureau of Labor Statistics — County Employment and Wages data
Los Alamos and Catron county weekly wage extremes
Bureau of Labor Statistics — County-level average weekly wage data
NM public sector down 0.7%, private up 1.3% YoY through June 2026
NM Department of Workforce Solutions — Monthly Employment Release
Local Economic Conditions
NM unemployment rose to 4.2% in September 2026, up from August
NM Department of Workforce Solutions — State monthly employment release cited via KRQE/AOL News
Civilian labor force declined from 982.4k to 969.8k
NM Department of Workforce Solutions — State labor force preliminary data
How the numbers are calculated
- Advertised pay is the median of the pay ranges employers publish in active job postings in this metro. It is not survey or payroll data.
- Percent changes compare the latest six full months with the six months before that, for the same metro and sector.
- Sectors group postings by the employer's industry (NAICS) classification into ten sectors. Where a metro has too few postings in a sector, the state figure is used instead.
- Role pay trends use the same comparison windows. "Stable" means a change of less than 3%; "moderate" 3–10%; "significant" more than 10%.
Official data for comparison