Western Wonderlands - Top 10 Highest Demand Jobs in Santa Fe, NM

New Mexico is one of the US states that is working full force in Santa Fe and other major markets in the cause of the Sustainability Industry and the new jobs that it produces.

An exciting fact is that in the 2000s, collaborations among NM's universities, vocational schools, private sector businesses, and government agencies have produced new services and technologies that blossomed into new jobs. These postitions began replacing others lost in the 2008 - 2009 Recession and will continue to grow in the coming decades. All this has influenced Sustainability Education in K-12 and community learning centers.

The City of Santa Fe is the County Seat of the county of the same name in the Southwest state of New Mexico. In addition, the city has been awarded a position on the list of Top 30 Cities for Jobs in the US by CareerBuilder.com and has been recognized by several economists, trade magazines, and financial organizations (see next section).

An exanding metro area in terms of population and economy, the Santa Fe Metro Area was home to nearly 80,000 people at the end of 2008, The unemployment rate in December '08 was 3.9%, compared to over 7% nationally. This area unemployment rate is still a low level, particularly under 4%, indicating that the employment market is holding a pot of unfilled jobs that are waiting for good job applicants to claim them.

The Top 3 Major Industries in this metro area are Public Administration, Retail Trade & Healthcare and Social Services.

The average weekly wage workers in this are during the 2nd Quarter 2008 (ending in June) was over $700.00, or about $17.65/hour and over $36,700 annually in a full-time position. As with other Top 30 Cities, standard of living is relatively high while cost of living is lower than among many other communities in America. Educational opportunities are phenomenal in this area, while the crime rate is comparatively low. A rich multicultural history and natural beauty not only attracts Travel and Tourism dollars, but also provides interesting choices for free time activities in Santa Fe.

• The Second Best Place to Live in the US: Cities Ranked & Rated, 2004.
• America’s Healthiest City: Organic Style magazine, 2003.
• One of the Top 10 World’s Best Cities: Travel and Leisure magazine in August 2003.
• Among the "10 Best Places for Business and Careers" Forbes magazine, 2003.
• Where to Retire magazine listed Santa Fe as one of "Eight Great Tax-Friendly Towns", 2003.
• Number Two among the Top 10 Art Destinations: by American Style Magazine, 2002.
• One of the “10 Dream Towns”: Outside Magazine, 2001.
• One of the Top 10 Places to Retire: Money Magazine, 2000.
• “The second oldest city in the country is positioned to emerge as a tech-driven 21st-century hot spot": Wired magazine, 2000.

The following list of jobs contain those most often listed because of any of the following conditions: 1) Lack of qualified personnel available, 2) High turnover rate, 3) New job creation.

Most Often Listed Job Vacancies:

1. Registed Nurses (RNs)
2. Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists
3. Travel Nurses
4. Emergency Medicine
5. Hospitalist jobs

Jobs in highest demand long-term include:

1. Office and Administrative Support
2. Sales and similar jobs
3. Food Preparation & Service
4. Construction/Extraction
5. Management, all levels
6. Education & Training (E&T)
7. Protective Services
8. Building/Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance
9. Healthcare Practitioners and Techs
10. Community and Social Services

Additional Fast Growing Jobs (Service & Retail Industries)

• Cashiers
• Retail Sales Persons

The leading and most successful industries in the Santa Fe region include Educational Services, Healthcare, Social Services, and the Tourism & Travel Industry.

Individual Employers and Job Services

• Los Alamos National Laboratory
• New Mexican Classifieds
• Santa Fe County Job Openings
• New Mexico High Tech Job Forum

Large Companies with Job Openings

• UnitedHealth Group - Second-largest insurance company in the USA; 71,000,000 members. No. 14 on the Business Week Top 50 in 2008.
• Johnson & Johnson - www.jnj.com
• Nurse Options USA - www.nurseoptions.com
• Med Travelers - Travel healthcare in all fields at MedTravelers.com.

Many of the largest Santa Fe employers are among the largest 50 in the State of New Mexico:

• Los Alamos National Laboratory in Alamos - over 7,000 employees and growing.
• New Mexico House of Representatives - State legislature.
• St Vincent Hospital
• City of Santa Fe Risk Management Office
• Corrections Department in Los Lunas
• City/County Health Department
• New Mexico Health Dept
• New Mexico State Penitentiary
• New Mexico Department of Transportation (DOT)
• Santa Fe Community College
• Resorts & Hotels
• General Services Department of Santa Fe

The Santa Fe area is home to  a greater number of choices for higher education than available many cities around America. It offers even more colleges, universities, vocational schools, and technical schools than most of the other cities on the list of Top 30 List.

An updated listing of school includes:

• College of Santa Fe
• Ecoversity - A non-profit commuity based learning institution that offers many free classes (see below).
• Insitute of the American Indian
• Leibniz University
• Lincoln University
• New Mexico Highlands University
• New Mexico State University
• Northern New Mexico College
• St. John’s College
• Santa Fe Art Institute
• Santa Fe Community College
• School for Advanced Research
• SMU - Taos
• Southwest Acupuncture College
• Southwestern College
• University of Natural Medicine
• University of New Mexico
• Vogue Beauty College

EcoVersity has developed an Alternative Energy Park in Santa Fe, one of the first in the nation. The park includes solar-photovoltaic, solar-thermal, wind turbines, and 'living green algae machines' that work algae into oil as 1) biofuel and 2) food - blue green algae spirulina is useful for animal and human foods.

The energy park is supported by the work of students that are supervised by professor Alfonz Viszolay, a Hungarian engineer and inventor. He is a leader in the field of algae-culture and environmental reclamation. The Ecoversity Alternative Energy Park opened during Spring of 2009 and to schools K-12 and postseceondary, and other educational facilities for programming, teaching, and hands-on project based learning - the most effective type of learning.

Beekeeping is the focus of another course and project. EcoVersity TV programs are available at the website at http://www.ecoversity.org/Ecoversity_TV.html. In addition, the website offers links and resources to other organizations and materials in the quest for sustainability.

Environmental jobs available around the world at StopDoDo.com.

• Sustainable Santa Fe
• Los Alamos National Laboratory Museum
• The New Mexico Food Museum - Santa Fe Traditions -- See how Frito's corn chips were invented in the 1930s and learn how to make a Frito Pie. Find out how Coca Cola arrived in 1896. Histories of dozens of Santa Fe neighborhoods are also online at that site.
• Santa Fe National Historic Trail & National Park
• School for Advanced Research (link under education above) - Part of Native American preservation this school was founded in 1907 as a facilty for teaching archeology, social sciences, and Native American arts. The public can attend unique lectures, attend adventurous field trips to archaeological digss, and enjoy guided tours of the Indian Arts Research Center.