.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... ..........
When the Great Recession ended in 2009, it took the United States five years to regain lost jobs. In New Mexico, recovery took twice that long, with the state surpassing its pre-recession employment levels just before the COVID-19 pandemic brought the economy to a halt.
It was a lost decade of job growth that stalled upward mobility for workers and families and forced college graduates – New Mexico’s future – to leave the state for opportunities elsewhere.
The reason it took twice as long to recover: New Mexico’s answer to tight budgets was to cut economic development investments in the LEDA fund to almost zero and to suppress funding to New Mexico’s longest and best-rated workforce training program, the Job Training Incentive Program (JTIP).