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Colorado employers added 3,700 jobs between December and January, but about as many people joined the labor force, keeping the unemployment rate level at 4.2 percent, according to a report Tuesday from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
Private-sector employers added 6,400 jobs in January, while governments shed 2,700 positions. The state’s labor force grew by about 3,500, which helped keep the unemployment rate steady.
The biggest job gains both monthly and annually came in education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and construction.
Professional and business services, a key provider of higher-paying jobs, declined between December and January, while the information sector was the only one to suffer an annual decline.
Measured January to January, nonfarm payroll jobs increased 71,100 with the private sector accounting for 70,500 of that increase. That helped push the unemployment rate down to 4.2 percent from 5.8 percent
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Revised figures show that nonfarm employment rose 3.3 percent in Colorado last year, much faster than the 2.7 percent rate initially estimated and the 1.9 percent rate of job growth nationally.
That momentum should help the state as it absorbs layoffs in an oil and gas sector under pressure because of a halving of oil prices since June.
Oil and gas extraction, including related services, employs about 28,000 people out of the nearly 2.5 million employed statewide, said Alexandra Hall, the state’s chief labor economist.
Not all those jobs will go away. But even if half did, those kind of losses are manageable, she said. So far, there aren’t any signs that a severe retrenchment is underway.
“Right now, we are not seeing anything yet in our unemployment insurance claims,” Hall said, adding those claims continue to fall on a year-over-year basis.
Those impacts may remain localized. Weld County, where much of the recent drilling activity has been centered, could prove especially vulnerable, said Gary Horvath, an economist based in Broomfield.
But the hope is that hiring in other areas such as construction and manufacturing could employ some of those displaced workers.
“In that area, Vestas is reportedly hiring up to 400 workers, which may offset some of the net job losses in the extractive industries,” he said.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or twitter.com/aldosvaldi
