Union membership increased slightly in New Mexico in 2018, but it remains a minuscule 6.8 percent of the total workforce, according to figures released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Last year there were 56,000 union members in the state, up from 52,000 in 2017. The percentage of the state's salaried workforce that are union members increased to 6.8 percent in 2018 from 6.7 percent in 2017.
Nationally, the number of workers who are union members fell to 14.7 million in 2018, down from 14.8 million in 2017. The percentage of all U.S. workers who are union members fell slightly to 10.5 percent from 10.7 percent.
Most union members are in public-sector jobs. The union membership rate of public-sector workers was 33.9 percent, more than five times higher than that of private-sector workers (6.4 percent), the BLS said.