Restaurant association CEO on New Mexico’s unwilling workforce: ‘We’re in danger’

(The Center Square) – New Mexico Republicans are asking the governor to offer return-to-work bonuses of $1,200 to help incentivize unemployed workers to return to jobs. This request accompanies another to end the additional $300 federal unemployment benefit.

New Mexico has the third-highest unemployment rate in the U.S. at 8.2%, right behind California and Hawaii. And it’s not because the state lacks jobs, critics say.

“There are plenty of businesses looking for employees, not just fast food and low-wage jobs, but higher-wage jobs that are going unfilled these days,” Paul Gessing, president for the free market think tank Rio Grande Foundation, told The Center Square.

Carol Wight, CEO of the New Mexico Restaurant Association, said ending the extra $300 weekly unemployment payments would definitely help the workforce problem; however, she is not sure $1,200 bonuses would be enough to make a difference.

“Other states have done it, and I think it’s doing very little to move the needle, and I’m not sure why,” Wight told The Center Square.

It’s been approximately a month since some other states started, she said, and they haven’t seen a flood of new employees entering the workplace.

Arizona’s Republican governor and Connecticut’s Democrat governor are offering monetary incentives to willing workers, as are other states. Both had similar requirements that employees hold the job for a specified period of time. Montana and Oklahoma are also following suit.

Gessing said the best option would have been to never accept the latest stimulus package in the first place, pointing out it has actually done the opposite of stimulus.

He concedes, however, that at this point, taking the funding provided for the unemployment supplement and using it for back-to-work bonuses might be a good option.

“It’s a good, worthwhile idea,” he said.

But he expects Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will dismiss it out of hand.

“No Democrat has rejected the money at all so the idea that our governor of all governors would be the first Democrat to do that would be pretty shocking,” Gessing said.

Bonus or no, Wight is worried the damage done by the extended unemployment benefits may be irreversible.

“If we continue the federal enhancements until September, we’re in danger of losing a lot more of our workforce,” she said.

Wight is concerned New Mexico’s most motivated employees who didn’t want to go on unemployment have left the state.

“They moved,” she said. “They’ve gone – especially if they were in a place that bordered Texas or Arizona, they went to Arizona to make money, they went to Texas to make money. And unfortunately, I don’t think they’re coming back.”

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