The Fastest-Growing Jobs in America, Read Through a New Mexico Lens

Pay attention, New Mexico. The federal government just published its map of the next decade of American work, and the state's spending priorities do not line up with it.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its 2025–2035 occupational projections in late August. Total employment grows by 5.9 million over the ten years, from 170.3 million to 176.2 million, and the median wage across all occupations sits at $50,980. Here are the ten fastest-growing occupations in the country, with projected growth and 2025 median annual pay:

• Nurse practitioners: 41 percent growth, 137,800 new jobs, $132,300
• Solar photovoltaic installers: 37 percent, 11,300 new jobs, $53,140
• Data scientists: 35 percent, 95,400 new jobs, $120,230
• Wind turbine service technicians: 30 percent, 3,500 new jobs, $64,120
• Med and health services managers: 24 percent, 155,100 new jobs, $123,860
• Physical therapist assistants: 23 percent, 26,200 new jobs, $68,380
• Psychiatric technicians: 22 percent, 36,000 new jobs, $45,130
• Computer and info research scientists: 22 percent, 8,400 new jobs, $140,300
• Occupational therapy assistants: 21 percent, 11,200 new jobs, $72,300
• Ophthalmic medical technicians: 21 percent, 15,500 new jobs, $45,570

Just outside the top ten: physician assistants at 21 percent and $135,880, and information security analysts at 21 percent and $129,180. Twelve of the twenty fastest-growing occupations are in health care.

Read that list again. It is not just nurses and green energy. It is health care management, rehabilitation therapy, behavioral health, eye care, cybersecurity, and computing. Eight of the ten pay above the national median wage. Several — physical therapist assistant, occupational therapy assistant, psychiatric technician, ophthalmic medical technician, solar installer — are reachable through an associate degree or a certificate, not a graduate program.

New Mexico's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.8 percent in July 2026, up from 4.0 percent a year earlier.

New Mexico holds the winning hand

In the single fastest-growing occupation in America, New Mexico already pays better than most of the country.

Nurse practitioners here earn a median $137,520 a year, about $66 an hour, roughly $5,200 above the national median and eleventh highest among the states and the District of Columbia, according to the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey for May 2025. The middle 80 percent earn between $106,320 and $175,020.

The state employs about 1,770 of them. High pay in a tiny workforce is the signature of scarcity, not success.

New Mexico also made the paperwork harder than it had to be. The state joined the Nurse Licensure Compact in 2018, letting registered nurses and licensed practical nurses work across member-state lines without new licenses. That compact does not cover advanced practice registered nurses, the category that includes nurse practitioners. A separate Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Compact exists to solve exactly that problem. New Mexico has not joined it.

The state can move when it wants to. Senate Bill 1, the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact for physicians, passed the Senate 40–0 and the House 64–0 and was signed February 5. Unanimous, both chambers, three weeks. Meanwhile Think New Mexico counted eight other health care licensure compacts left unfinished when the session adjourned — including compacts for physician assistants, counselors, physical therapists, and occupational therapists, four occupations sitting in or near the national top ten. These cost the state almost nothing. They simply let already-licensed professionals start working here.

Where the money actually went

In December, the Early Childhood Education and Care Department asked the Legislative Finance Committee for a $1.2 billion budget, a $196.2 million increase, including $662 million for child care assistance and $278.6 million for preschool. Lawmakers of both parties objected to the size and to not being consulted before the governor announced universal free child care. In March she signed Senate Bill 241, writing universal child care into state law and authorizing up to $700 million from the Early Childhood Trust Fund over five years. Days earlier she signed House Bill 124, creating a permanent Office of New Americans inside the Department of Workforce Solutions to serve immigrant workers.

Now the comparison. The record $1.5 billion higher education budget for fiscal year 2027, a 15.4 percent increase, includes $186 million for the Opportunity Scholarship and $25 million for the Health Professional Loan Repayment Program, the state's primary tool for placing doctors, nurses, and clinicians in rural and underserved counties.

Twenty-five million dollars, against $662 million for a single child care line item. Both are real priorities. But only one of them buys workers in occupations projected to grow 21 to 41 percent nationally, and it is smaller by a factor of twenty-six.

The wage contradiction

New Mexico's leaders talk constantly about affordability. Look at what the state's own programs assume about the sector it is expanding fastest.

The early childhood wage supplement program is open only to educators earning less than $18 an hour. In February, lawmakers put $60 million toward an early childhood wage and career ladder, described by the department as roughly $10 million a year over three years, after tying reimbursement rates to an $18 minimum for some employees. The Department of Workforce Solutions still lists the average early childhood educator salary in New Mexico at $37,900.

So the state is spending $662 million to expand access to child care while separately needing a $60 million program to lift the pay of the people providing it. Those workers deserve the raise. But a state cannot subsidize its way to prosperity through a sector whose wage-support ceiling is $18 an hour while eight of the ten fastest-growing occupations in the country, most of them paying north of $60,000, go understaffed here.

Rural New Mexico takes the hit

Statewide averages hide almost everything. In June 2026, county unemployment ranged from 2.3 percent to 13.2 percent, with Los Alamos County lowest and Luna County highest. A six-fold gap inside one state.

Los Alamos is a national laboratory town, and it is where the high-wage technical growth on the federal list would land. Computer and information research scientists carry the highest median pay in the top ten at $140,300.

Health care demand runs the other direction, heaviest where the population is oldest and providers scarcest. A 41 percent national growth rate means nothing in Deming or Lordsburg without a clinic hiring and a training program within driving distance. Solar installation follows project siting, which in New Mexico means rural and tribal land.

What to do with it

For job seekers, the signal worth tracking is growth plus pay plus how long the credential takes. Solar photovoltaic installer runs 37 percent growth at $53,140 and is reachable through a certificate. Physical therapist assistant: 23 percent growth, $68,380, two-year degree. Wind turbine service technician: 30 percent growth, $64,120. Home health and personal care aide adds the most raw jobs of any occupation in America, 847,300, but pays a $35,800 median — available nearly everywhere, sufficient nearly nowhere.

For employers: New Mexico's nurse practitioner pay premium over Texas is under $6,000 at the median. In an occupation growing 41 percent nationally, that bidding will not stay local.

-Kulo out