With New Mexico pulling some of the highest unemployment rates in the country, numbers in Farmington could signal a changing workforce even as numbers begin to improve.

As many states continue to recover from high unemployment rates brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, New Mexico's unemployment rates are improving, but at a slower pace than officials had hoped for, according to KOB 4. 

“The fact that we are still coming off COVID and some of the challenges that folks have experienced with that and returning to the workforce – we had a large number of retirements; we also had a lot of folks that have looked for new opportunities in our community,” Mike Stark, San Juan County manager, said, as reported by KOB 4.

In Farmington, the unemployment rate sits at 5.4%, despite a wide swatch of job openings across the county. Many critical service roles, such as jobs in the police department, still have especially low unemployment levels due to people leaving these jobs during the pandemic. Those people eventually found other employment, such as online work, according to KOB 4. 

Warren Unsicker, director of economic development for Farmington, said many people in the city decided to find their own work or create a job on their own when service jobs became unavailable during the pandemic, KOB 4 reported.

San Juan County is holding a job fair on May 4 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the McGee Park Convention & Multiuse Centers in order to boost the slowly rising employment rate.