A new economic impact report shows the number of Santa Fe County residents working for Los Alamos National Laboratory decreased slightly in fiscal year 2025, the first such reduction in several years.

The employment of Santa Fe County residents by LANL has increased sharply since fiscal year 2020, when the lab began a hiring surge. It employed approximately 2,900 Santa Fe County residents in 2020, a figure that swelled to a peak of 4,172 by 2024.

But that number fell slightly in fiscal year 2025 — which ended Sept. 30, 2025 — dropping to 4,089.

Despite the decrease, the total amount of salaries paid to Santa Fe County residents employed by the lab continued to increase in fiscal year 2025, rising from $504 million in 2024 to $515 million in 2025.

The lab’s total employment decreased slightly at the same time, going from 16,547 workers the previous year to 16,487. But its budget continued to rise, growing from $5.24 billion to $5.28 billion.

Lab Director Thom Mason said the report released Tuesday generally reflects the continued growth the lab has experienced over the last several years.

“We’ve seen growth in our budgets because of the evolution of our mission,” Mason said, referring to LANL’s shift toward a greater emphasis on plutonium pit production.

“There are only two things we do with [the funding],” he said. “We pay people, and we buy stuff. … It is obvious that New Mexico and Northern New Mexico benefit from that economic activity.”

Mason attributed the slight decline in employment to a couple of factors, one being the federal government shutdown in the fall, which caused lab officials to conserve the funding they had. Mason said the number of new employees LANL brought on board also had begun to level out before the shutdown because staffing was approaching the targeted level after a hiring surge in previous years.

“It has already tapered off,” he said, noting that hiring peaked in fiscal year 2023, and lab employment has grown more slowly since then.

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Published comments by Greg Mello

As usual, the excellent Mr. Easterling has written an interesting and informative article. Alas there is a big problem or two. The New Mexican appears to be desperately seeking confirmation of LANL's economic beneficence via a credentialed authority in -- something -- to shore up the "economic development" story about LANL in the face of contrary data. White's facile remarks are a case of "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" Where precisely is the economic development cited? What is that beast anyway? Mr. White falls into the ditch of defining economic development as money spent. That is the ditch in which New Mexico's economic and social development has died. Presumably, economic development would have something to do with economic outcomes, and then social outcomes -- development indices and social metrics used by researchers around the world. But outcomes are entirely missing from this article. Mr. White, a teacher of finance -- i.e. money, not regional development -- focuses on money and its basic arithmetic, defining development in a circular manner, missing the intellectual and human bus. Let's instead look at results.

How shall we tease the economic development effect of LANL's spending from all the other economic activity in the region, and from New Mexico's appalling economic and social performance overall? One way is to look at Rio Arriba County. If Los Alamos is bringing economic development to New Mexico, why is the surrounding County of Rio Arriba performing so poorly? Using only slightly dated data from an analysis last year, the then-2,398 employees of LANL residing in Rio Arriba County pulled in $291 million in LANL salaries (in fiscal year 2023). This did not include the substantial sums paid to subcontractors. Since there were only 9,462 employees total in Rio Arriba County, LANL employees comprised 31% of all employees in Rio Arriba County, not counting subcontractors, of which there were and are many. Given the enormous economic influence of LANL on Rio Arriba's economy, the County's relative rankings within New Mexico in key social indicators can tell us, more than any other observable measure, how much "economic development" LANL really brings. That relative ranking within New Mexico in effect "cancels out" the effect of statewide variables and policies. The State Department of Health and Human Services has made those rankings, which are here.

So what do we find? Despite over $200 million in LANL jobs, plus more in subcontracting, we see that Rio Arriba ranks in the worse half of New Mexico counties in poverty overall and has the 4th highest ranking in poverty of minors and elderly. It has the highest rate of accidental death of any New Mexico county, and the second highest rate of alcohol-related deaths and drug overdose deaths. Rio Arriba's per capita income, food security, and child food security rankings are in the bottom half of New Mexico counties. Rio Arriba County does poorly, despite all its LANL jobs. This neither proves nor disproves that proximity to LANL, with all its high-paying jobs, has caused this poor economic and social performance.

What it does prove, in broad-brush but irrefutable fashion, is that LANL is not any kind of "economic development" engine. Rio Arriba's problems continue despite 80 years of LANL spending, to the tune of approximately $156 billion in today's dollars. (See If Los Alamos is bringing economic development to New Mexico, why is the neighboring County of Rio Arriba performing so poorly?, LASG research note updated May 16, 2025). Zooming out, White is wrong about the Santa Fe housing market also. According to LANL Director Mason, over a recent 5-year period LANL employees absorbed 40% of all the new housing in Santa Fe. That is a LOT of impact, and it continues. As an actual regional economist with decades of experience once said to me, "Those who think LANL creates economic development are those for whom 60 [now 80] years of data are not enough."

I think the New Mexican is behaving in a really desperate fashion, and is in denial, like a psychologically abused spouse. The psychological aspect is important, because it is identification with LANL and SNL that is one of the biggest underlying problems for New Mexico politicians and opinion leaders. Without our wonderful labs, what can we in New Mexico point to with pride? There are a few things, but we who love New Mexico and want it to thrive have got to face the fact that New Mexico is failing. Every time "economic development" comes up, the labs and now the proposed data centers take center stage. Surely the labs will bring in tech industries to save us! This pattern has persisted for decades. It has rightly been called an example of the "Stockholm Syndrome," where captives begin to identify with their captors. It is basically a welfare mentality that affects our political elites. "We don't need to make things, or do things, or brace ourselves with the need for greater responsibility from top to bottom, because the labs are producing all this wonderful economic development." Here is the result: https://lasg.org/FailingState/FailingState.html.

Right now, our legislature is meeting for a month. One month. It is not enough time -- not even close to enough time to grapple with our problems and opportunities. Our political and opinion leaders are themselves the addicted parents. Nuclear weapons are their heroin.Someone we know has been conducting an informal, ad hoc poll of New Mexicans, asking them what LANL and SNL actually do. Very few know. The follow-up question she asks is, "Did you know that these laboratories make weapons of mass destruction?" (Well, only LANL actually makes them, but it's her survey, not ours.) Respondents -- all of them -- are disbelieving and appalled. So it's not just that LANL doesn't create economic development. We could almost live with that, if the work there was for a noble purpose. It is not noble, and most people understand that, so what actually goes on in the labs has to be covered up or dressed up. We can't face it. We end up with these huge labs that by their nature create no coherent or noble public meaning, depriving the State of a useful identity around which labor and loyalty can coalesce. What little non-weapons work they do is exaggerated far out of proportion to whitewash the rest.

In its present context, the mission of LANL arguably violates Article VI of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and is, overall, an affront to human morality, as Pope Francis and many others have emphasized. Every plutonium pit LANL makes for the President's nuclear quiver has the potential to kill, in round numbers, a million people. "As many as there are leaves in this forest, that's how many people you will kill," said the visionary "Eusa Story" in the post-apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. I have just returned from Washington, DC, where I heard the NNSA Administrator and his senior appointees speak frankly about the new nuclear weapons they wanted as fast as possible, from LANL. The old paradigm of "stockpile stewardship" and "life extension programs" is over. A new paradigm of weapons production is now in place, nowhere more so than at LANL. LANL safety regulations are being loosened to enable this. The old administrative limit of 1 rem per year for radiation workers has been relaxed to 5 rem per year. Secretary Wright has already approved removal of the "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA) principle from DOE radiation exposure rules. Don't be fooled by the bland persona of the LANL Director. When he says, as he did this week in Washington, "We are being asked to do more," he meant it. The ones asking him are blunt military men, and Trump's appointees, and they are in a hurry to get more nuclear weapons to prepare for possible wars, more or less along the lines the Heritage Foundation requested. That's the reality. Face it.