By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote
© 2026 New Mexico News Services

A recent headline tells us that New Mexico lost 2,700 federal jobs between March 2025 and March 2026. It’s actually worse than that.

Late last year the number of unemployed federal employees hit 2,900 and stayed at that level for months, pushing up our unemployment rate.

I spent years at newspapers where we reported – and lamented – the loss of even 100 jobs in this state. These numbers are breathtaking on a lot of levels.

First, about one in 20 jobs in New Mexico is, or was, in the federal government. A dollar spent by a federal employee has the same economic impact as a dollar spent by anybody else. But we now have thousands of newly unemployed who are not eating out, not buying furniture, who struggle to make their house payment. Second, the kinds of jobs we lost should give everyone pause. And third, the government refuses to say how many workers it’s fired.

Let’s take a closer look. Beginning in February 2025, 800 federal workers were out of work here. That rose to 1,000 in March and April and increased steadily through September to 1,600. In October there was no jobs report from the state Department of Workforce Solutions because federal funding was suspended. When the report returned in November, the number had soared to 2,900, a 9.8% cut in the federal workforce over the previous year. The totals stayed high through January and February of this year and stood at 2,500 in April.

More than half the losses were in Albuquerque, but Rio Rancho, Las Cruces, Alamogordo, Clovis, Carlsbad and Farmington also took hits.

Who did we lose? Forest rangers, park rangers, firefighters, scientists, land managers, wildlife refuge managers, fish biologists, weather forecasters, and nuclear safety managers, to name a few.

A lot of jobs disappeared from land agencies like the National Park Service, which protects the crown jewels of the tourist industry. Some of the chaotic and haphazard firings of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency were reversed in court, and some agencies, finding themselves too thinly staffed, did some rehiring. But thousands of jobs went away.

Last year, Carlsbad Caverns National Park (visitation: 400,000) lost more than 20% of its employees, according to media reports and members of Congress. That led to the abrupt cancellation of guided cavern tours and after-school programs, as well as reduced hours at the visitor center.

The U.S. Forest Service lost a quarter of its employees last year, many of them red-card holders, which means they’re certified for firefighting. We know that Gila National Forest, Sacramento Ranger District and Cibola National Forest lost trail and campground maintenance crews.

Wrote Justin Schatz, of Silver City: “Those recently terminated were not the ‘fat’ or ‘excess’ that the administration says it is targeting. We were the boots on the ground, the ones sweating and toiling under the New Mexico sun, with many of us getting paid just enough to make ends meet.”

The Deseret News wrote this month that New Mexico lost 855 public lands jobs; of those, 481 were in the Forest Service. The Bureau of Land Management is down 108 people, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, 78. Most affected: wildlife management.

We are without these people going into tourist season and as natural disasters get worse each year because of climate change. Those who stay are stretched and demoralized. A friend who spent his career in the Forest Service said he saw tears day after day. Another friend emails from Lincoln County that the mountain air was smoky, and she could smell smoke. Who is protecting her and her neighbors?

The situation is similar at Social Security, IRS and Veterans Affairs offices. Heavy layoffs lit up phone lines in congressional offices, as wait times grew longer and constituents couldn’t get services. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan and Rep. Gabe Vasquez warned that the Veterans Affairs Department was decimated. Many who lost jobs were themselves veterans.

Elon Musk promised that his DOGE would eliminate $2 trillion in fraud and waste but then whittled that number to $175 billion, offering little proof. Recent analysis indicates that DOGE will cost money. Just two of many reasons: It gutted the IRS, all but encouraging tax evasion, and hamstrung the revenue-generating national parks. Agencies had to replace some fired workers at a higher cost and couldn’t replace those with high-demand skills. Then there’s the higher risks of wildfire managed by a skeletal Forest Service.

Finally, there are the wasted skills of former employees who show up as statistics in unemployment reports.