Hype about coming jobs exceeds reality

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) - Over the last nearly eight years Gov. Bill Richardson announced more than 17,000 jobs coming to New Mexico. His administration made job creation a priority and jumped all over dozens of company announcement, but did he jump too soon?

Some of his announcements became big successes like Fidelity Investments in Albuquerque.

"(It) will create 1,250 good-paying jobs," Richardson said in January of 2008. It's still hiring and on track for more than 1,000 jobs.

The Hewlett Packard support center in Rio Rancho and the Uranium Enrichment plant near Hobbs also look like good catches for the state. Plus, who can forget Southwest Cheese in Clovis with 225 jobs.

"We competed against Texas, and we won," said Richardson about securing Southwest Cheese in August of 2003.

Still the state lost other many job-generating projects after Richardson announced them.

Since taking office in 2003 the Richardson administration announced at least 63 businesses starting up in New Mexico or moving to the state with 50 or more jobs each. Today only 37 of those companies actually have employees in the state.

Others came and went, but New 13 found at least 14 companies never even set up shop in New Mexico.

Take The Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association. Richardson announced it would relocate its headquarters and hall of fame here, bringing 85 jobs. That never happened. The association's chief operating officer told News 13 it just made more sense to stay in Colorado.

Remember how Tesla was coming to Albuquerque? The electric-car maker made a U-turn back to California after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger out-muscled Richardson by offering Tesla better incentives.

How about two ethanol manufacturers, one in Clovis another in Roswell, with more than 100 jobs combined? Neither company even broke ground.

And just last year there were two solar companies announced, one in Belen where the state spent millions building it a road and another in Albuquerque. What do we have? Nothing. They couldn't secure financing after the Richardson announcements. That's 1,600 jobs that never materialized.

From 2003 through 2009, of the 17,060 jobs the Richardson administration said were coming to New Mexico, 6,276 jobs exist today.

"We've learned some lessons over the past several years in terms of what gets announced and what doesn't get announced," said Richardson's Secretary of Economic Development, Fred Mondragón.

In an interview Tuesday he conceded that announcements have been made where the jobs don't come through, but said they're meant, in part, to market the state to other companies.

"The announcements that are made entice other people and say there is something going in New Mexico that makes it an attractive place to be," he said.

When asked if the state was misleading the public by making these announcements prematurely, Mondragón responded, "Well, I can assure you that the state is not deliberately, in any fashion, misleading the public."

He pointed to the emergence of China as a competitor in alternative energy and the downturn in the economy as reasons some of the deals fell apart.

But even without including the recession years, not even one in five companies announced by the state has delivered the number of jobs the governor promised.