8/2/19 New Mexico's fastest growing jobs - Albuquerque Business First

More than 50 industries in New Mexico have seen their workforces double since 2009.

According to a report by California-based commercial real estate website CommercialCafe, which compiled data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of nuclear engineers and physicists has multiplied five times over in New Mexico since 2009.

Business First recently reported a number of companies growing their nuclear workforces, including Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologiesand Sandia National Laboratories. Sandia's growth has been spurred by a nationwide push to modernize the country's nuclear arsenal, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated will cost the country $1.2 trillion over three decades. The U.S. is reportedly on pace to spend $494 billion on the task in the next 10 years.

While some industries have exploded in number of employees over the past decade, New Mexico's workforce participation and overall workforce have decreased. From 2007-2017, the civilian population grew by 8.8 percent, but the workforce decreased by 0.2 percent.