In a press conference in the echoey Capitol rotunda yesterday, three of New Mexico’s leaders overseeing employment in the state talked about programs and preparations in the wake of federal cuts.
Secretary of Workforce Solutions, Sarita Nair, compared her team’s work to how the state responds to natural disasters.
“ We're treating this very much the way that we treat the fires and the floods. This is a significant event that we're expecting to impact our communities," Nair said.
"We have sort of a tiger team that always deals with federal employment claims. We already have that team set up. Our normal staffing so far has been adequate, but we're always prepared to ramp up if we need that on the unemployment insurance side.”
Nair said that since the beginning of February, her department has received about 140 unemployment insurance claims from people who identified their last employer as a federal agency.
Workforce Solutions estimates the size of the federal work force in New Mexico at about 30,000 people.
About 2200 of those workers are in probationary periods, which means they could be more vulnerable to the federal chopping block.
According the latest figures, former federal workers in Albuquerque have filed the highest number of unemployment claims, at 51, followed by Carlsbad, Santa Fe, Rio Rancho, and Las Cruces.
The main objective of yesterday’s meeting for Nair, secretary Rob Black of the Economic Development Department and director Dylan Lange of the State Personnel Office was to encourage federal workers who lost their jobs to file claims as soon as possible.
Nair, Black, and Lange also encouraged the newly unemployed to seek possible opportunities working for the state of New Mexico.
As of last night, 642 state job openings were listed on the New Mexico careers website.
The state personnel office has a hotline set up for laid-off federal workers.
Nair also said that three recruitment events are being held in coming days, two this Friday afternoon in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and a third on March 7 in Carlsbad.
