DENVER—Colorado’s unemployment rate has hit a 20-year high.
The state Department of Labor and Employment announced Friday that the unemployment rate for February was 7.2 percent. It hasn’t been that high since February of 1988. A year ago the rate was 4.5 percent, in January it was 6.6 percent, and in December it was 5.8 percent.
Don Mares, the labor department’s executive director, attributed the rise to “tepid growth in business investment and lackluster consumer spending.”
The number of employed Coloradans fell by 21,500 people in February. The department says joblessness went up in 51 counties last month, including Dolores County in southwest Colorado, which now has the state’s highest jobless rate of 13.8 percent. There are now almost 200,000 people in Colorado looking for work.
However, KUSA-TV reports that one good thing does result from the 7.2 percent unemployment-rate figure: Close to 10,000 Coloradans are now eligible for an extra 13 weeks of Emergency Unemployment Compensation.
Any state that records a three-month average rate of greater than 6 percent is eligible for the federal extension. The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment expects to start mailing notices to people eligible for the funds in about a week and a half.
Earlier this week, legislative economists warned that Colorado’s unemployment benefits fund will be close to insolvency next year because of high demand. The fund likely will require bond issues or borrowing from the federal government.
Colorado’s rising joblessness is part of a national trend, according to federal statistics also released Friday.
All told, 49 states and the District of Columbia saw their unemployment rates move higher in February from the previous month. Only Nebraska recorded a slight drop. Its jobless rate dipped to 4.2 percent.
Wyoming once again had the lowest unemployment rate, at 3.9 percent.
In Colorado, the biggest job losses in February came in professional and business services, a sector that has shed 27,200 jobs since February of last year, including 5,300 last month.
Colorado notched a third straight month of job losses in natural resources and mining—the first three-month skid in that sector since 2002. However, state officials say there are still more jobs in natural resources and mining than there were in February of 2008.
The report noted job growth in education and health services, up 2,400 jobs last month.
The labor department says there are now about 2.5 million people with jobs in Colorado. That’s down 62,900 from February of last year.
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