Navigating the Downturn is an occasional series examining how people and businesses are dealing with the economic climate.
GRAND JUNCTION — A “Now Hiring” sign blankets the front of Halliburton’s main western Colorado campus, visible to drivers on the busy street running past it.
The oil-field-services company has 100 open positions with an average annual salary of $50,000 and is relocating the hub for its fast-growing drilling service from Wyoming, adding another 50 workers.
“We’ve increased our employment by about 30 percent a year (since 2003),” said district manager Larry Kent. “We don’t anticipate a slowdown.”
In the face of the economic downturn rippling across the nation and Colorado, many businesses on the oil- and natural-gas-rich Western Slope are still in growth mode.
Buoyed by an energy boom that spurred a rash of new housing and commercial developments and brought thousands of jobs over the past few years, the area’s overall economy, though slowing, is holding up better than other parts of the state.
Western Slope bankruptcy filings increased 9 percent through May compared with the same time a year ago, while Denver and northeast Colorado’s surged 31 percent.
Grand Junction’s home values, which appreciated at a double-digit quarterly pace last year, grew by 9 percent during the first quarter of 2008. Homes in the Denver area grew by less than 1 percent.
Foreclosure rates in western Colorado’s two key energy counties are 1 per 576 households in Garfield County and 1 per 449 in Mesa County. Denver County’s rate is 1 per 123.
From 2002 to 2007, Garfield County’s population grew 14.4 percent, and Mesa County’s increased 13.9 percent, while Denver County’s was up 4.5 percent.
“It’s pretty upbeat,” said Battlement Mesa resident Shawn Helm, an employee at EnCana Oil & Gas, one of the state’s largest producers. “I deal with a lot of people in the industry and ancillary types of industries, and everybody feels like we’re doing pretty well. A large part of that is due to this industry.”
Colorado approved a record 6,368 drilling permits last year, with 40 percent of those in Garfield County, where the bulk of the drilling is occurring. The boom has been driven by a surge in natural-gas prices, and the Piceance Basin northwest of Grand Junction has an abundance of the fuel used to heat homes and generate electricity.
Despite the economic malaise, Halliburton’s Kent said drilling activity in the area this year is comparable to 2007.
Out-of-state job fairs
As such, Mesa County workforce officials will travel out of state to attract workers for the first time, attending job fairs in Las Vegas and Sacramento, Calif., to help fill 1,300 open positions in fields such as oil-and-gas extraction, construction, health care and transportation.
“They are still struggling to fill positions,” said Diane Schwenke, president of the Grand Junction Area Chamber of Commerce. “Today, and for the past 18 months, this has been a problem for businesses in the Grand Valley.”
EnCana Oil & Gas has 22 open positions in the area. Mays Concrete is looking to fill nine jobs. Engineering firm Drexel, Barrell & Co. wants to nearly double its office space at year’s end.
The workforce situation, however, is not nearly as dire as it was a year ago, when some businesses paid 20 percent salary premiums to attract workers. Mesa County has an available workforce of more than 81,000, up 5 percent from a year ago.
“Last year was a stressful year because of a lack of people and the amount of activity taking place,” said Dan Roberts, vice president of finance and administration with Mays Concrete.
But the picture is far from perfect. ‘s list of America’s recession-proof cities, published in April, didn’t include any Colorado cities. Some on the list, such as Oklahoma City and Seattle, feature declining unemployment rates and growing construction activity.
While many companies report job openings, the Grand Junction area’s unemployment rate in May was 3.6 percent, up from 2.7 percent a year ago. Building permits in the area have dropped about 19 percent through May compared with 2007.
“We’re constantly hearing that the energy industry insulates us, and it does to some degree because of all the activity,” Roberts said. “But we do somewhat follow what happens on a national scale too.”
Stung by fuel prices
Like many others across the nation, Roberts said his business has been stung by surging gasoline prices, which are about 10 cents higher a gallon in Grand Junction than in metro Denver.
Mays has spent $160,000 more on gasoline this year than it did during all of 2007.
“It’s almost virtually nonexistent to be able to have a surcharge for increases in operating costs,” Roberts said. “Gasoline, we pretty much have to eat.”
And while the housing situation remains healthy in Grand Junction, workers still feel the effects of the mortgage meltdown in the Denver area.
Patrick O’Hearn, a manager with Drexel, moved to Grand Junction in November. He still can’t sell his $650,000 Castle Rock home. It has forced him to rent a home in an extremely tight rental market.
“That’s the only negative so far,” O’Hearn said.
Drexel’s regional manager, Wayne Curry, who returned to Grand Junction in April after spending a year in Afghanistan, also hasn’t purchased a home. He attributes that to the area’s housing appreciation from the past couple of years.
“I’m just biding my time waiting for the prices to drop,” Curry said.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209 or avuong@denverpost.com
