The number of Colorado’s unemployed is the most in at least a quarter century — perhaps ever — and its unemployment rate the highest in 22 years, a Colorado Department of Labor and Employment report shows.
“We are seeing continued evidence that Colorado is following the nation in this contraction,” said Alexandra Hall, the department’s chief economist.
The state’s unemployment rate climbed to 7.5 percent in March, up three-tenths of a percentage point from February and reaching its highest level since May 1987, according to the report issued Friday.
And the number of unemployed workers — 204,800 — is the highest recorded in job statistics dating back to 1976. The number of Coloradans unemployed during the Great Depression was not immediately available.
Colorado employers have shed 72,700 payroll jobs since March 2008. About two-thirds have come in a pair of sectors: professional and business services, and construction.
Only government, health care and education added jobs between February and March.
Construction layoffs accelerated in March, normally a time when hiring increases ahead of warmer weather.
“You won’t see construction hiring until April or May,” said Randy DeMario, president of Heath Construction in Fort Collins. “Contracts are harder to get, and no one will hire in front of them.” Contractors are waiting until they win bids, mostly concentrated in the public sector, before they hire workers, he said.
The construction industry lost 5,700 payroll jobs between February and March and has shed 22,700 payroll positions in the past year on a seasonally adjusted basis, the report said.
Professional and business services, a broad category that catches everything from executives and lawyers to receptionists and temporary workers, shed 1,700 jobs during the month and is down 25,000 over the course of the year.
The unemployment rate doesn’t include the jobless who are so discouraged they have given up looking or those who settle for part-time or temporary work, known as the “underemployed.”
When those are factored in, the broader underemployment rate is about 13 percent, Hall estimates.
A positive development: New claims for unemployment compensation declined in April, Hall said.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
