Several hundred Coloradans got a rude reminder last week that rosy national economic statistics are meaningless when you lose your job.
The combined loss of nearly 460 jobs at the Neoplan USA bus factory in Lamar and a pickle plant in La Junta are a particularly telling blow to southeastern Colorado. In Denver, the United Airlines reservations center will close, affecting 250 workers.
Neoplan set up shop in Lamar in 1981 and once produced about a quarter of all buses sold in the U.S. Its work force shrank to 305 in recent years due to sagging sales and other problems.
The La Junta pickle and relish plant, opened in 1940, employed 153 and was acquired from Dean Foods in June by Bay Valley Foods of Green Bay, Wis. Because of surplus production capacity elsewhere, Bay Valley will close the plant in February and a distribution center in June.
Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo., plans to go to La Junta Monday to meet with workers. “When the economy is in a downturn, people in rural communities are always hit harder,” Salazar said. “Creating new jobs and economic development has been a challenge in rural Colorado.”
Salazar’s right, but Colorado’s economy also is complex, and some regions shine while others suffer. In the state’s 12 northwestern counties, the jobless rate has dropped from 4.3 to 3.3 percent in a year as energy companies, retailers and tourism scramble to find workers.
The plant closings don’t necessarily indicate a trend in southeastern Colorado but nonetheless are a serious blow to small-town economies, according to Denver economist Tucker Hart Adams. “It’s a disaster for Lamar,” Adams said, explaining that the Neoplan shutdown has a multiplier effect: cutbacks at Neoplan’s local suppliers and businesses where plant workers spend money could boost the job loss to 900, or nearly a fourth of all jobs, she noted. Similarly, the loss of 153 jobs will ripple through La Junta.
The United Airlines employees have a solid chance to find other jobs if they decline transfers, but factory workers in Lamar and La Junta will find fewer local opportunities, Adams noted.
The pressure is clearly on local and state officials to try to find new uses for the plants. Rapidly changing employment conditions around the state also are a reminder of the wisdom of public investment in schools, colleges and job training, to prepare Colorado workers for the job market of the future.
