NM union membership falls by 9 percent in 2020

The number of New Mexico workers who belong to labor unions fell by nearly 9 percent in 2020, according to new figures from the federal government.

Last year there were 53,000 labor union members in the state, down from 58,000 in 2019. Union members in 2020 made up 7.1 percent of the state's 743,000 wage and hour workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Nationally, union membership fell by 321,000, or 2.2 percent. Union members now make up 10.8 percent of the national workforce.

Union membership is heavily concentrated in the public sector, where unionized workers account for 34.8 percent of the workforce. Of the 2.6 million public-sector workers, 7.1 million were union members.

By contrast, only only 6.3 percent of the private-sector's 120.7 million workers were union members. That amounts to 7.1 million union members.

The percentage of union members in New Mexico in 2020 remained the same as in the previous year because there were more job losses in the private sector than in government jobs. And again, the public sector is more heavily unionized than the private sector.

Here's a look at the number of union members in New Mexico over the years, and their percentage of the total workforce:

2010: 55,000 7.3%

2011: 49,000 6.8%

2012: 50,000 6.5%

2013: 46,000 6.6%

2014: 43,000 5.7%

2015: 49,000 6.2%

2016: 49,000 6.3%

2017: 52,000 6.7%

2018: 56,000 6.8%

2019: 58,000 7.1%

2020: 53,000 7.1%