Between 1996 and 2002, a higher proportion of working New Mexicans were age 45 or over and the proportion of workers who were 65 years old and over increased slightly to 2.8 percent, the U.S. Census Bureau said today. The analysis of New Mexico’s older workers is one in a series of reports based on a new Census Bureau program called Local Employment Dynamics (LED).

     The report, A Profile of Older Workers in New Mexico [PDF], highlights the age composition of New Mexico’s work force, job gains and losses of older workers by industry, industries in which older workers were concentrated, and job stability and earnings of older workers.

     “States have had economic indicators for industries before, and they have had demographic characteristics of workers before,” said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon. “What is unique about LED is that it shows how the work force changes each quarter within a state or substate area, in what industries the changes occur, and the characteristics of workers involved in the changes. These indicators give new insight into each state’s economy and how fluid employment is in local areas.”

     Some highlights:

• Industries where workers 65 years old and over were most likely to be employed in 2002 included health services, business services, and eating and drinking establishments.

• The average quarterly turnover rates for the top 10 employers of workers 65 years old and over were highest in business services (20.1 percent) and eating and drinking establishments (16.5 percent). The lowest were in wholesale trade — durables (8 percent) and miscellaneous retail (9.2 percent)

• On average, workers 65 years old and over who worked a full quarter in 2002 earned $1,998 per month compared with $2,576 per month for workers 14 and over.

• The industry with the highest average monthly earnings in 2002 for workers 65 years old and over was engineering, accounting and research ($4,157), but the total number of such workers was only 889. Of the industries that employed more than 900 workers 65 years old and over, the highest paying was health services ($2,305 per month).

     LED is a partnership of 29 states with the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau will release reports for partner states on various topics over the coming year. Funding for this report was provided by the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services.

     Because the statistics come from a variety of sources, including state administrative records and basic demographic information, they are not directly comparable with statistics from household-based surveys such as the decennial census long form, the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey. Industries are organized under the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system. The LED program soon will move from the SIC system to the North American Industry Classification System. As in all data estimation processes, the results are subject to errors, such as those arising from data processing or incomplete records.

     Additional information about the program can be found at <http://lehd.dsd.census.gov>.

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