Cold weather and weak holiday hiring pushed Colorado’s unemployment rate in December to 7.5 percent from 6.9 percent in November, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment reported Friday.
“Outdoor employment came to a halt; there were a lot of jobs that didn’t happen,” said Alexandra Hall, the department’s chief economist.
Job tallies occur on the week that includes the 12th of each month. That week last month was unusually frigid, halting construction crews.
The subzero weather, combined with weaker-than-normal retail hiring, explains some of the rise in unemployment, Hall said.
But the sharp reversal surprised those hopeful the state’s job losses had bottomed out.
The state lost 8,400 nonfarm jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis, the biggest monthly drop since June.
The biggest decline, 2,800 jobs, came in construction. Professional and business services lost 2,100 jobs, government payrolls fell by 1,800 positions, and the category that includes retail fell by 1,300 during the month.
Only mining and financial activities managed to grow last month on a seasonally adjusted basis.
Westminster job hunter Sue Uye take, who has been employed on and off the past two years since losing a quality-assurance job at Sun Microsystems, thinks workers with short-term contracts may have seen those expire.
That said, she also has had close friends find work after a long search in recent months. “When you do see friends get employed, you feel more hope,” she said.
Uyetake has kept busy attending networking groups and volunteering with several organizations.
More recently, she has started cold-calling companies, with mixed results.
“There are a lot of excellent candidates out there, so companies are understandably waiting for the perfect candidate,” she said.
Uyetake may shift her search into community or public relations using skills she has developed while looking for work. She also plans to publish a book of poems describing her ups and downs while unemployed.
Hall said it is too early to tell if December represents a reversal in the employment outlook. She predicts labor markets will alternate between advances and declines in coming months.
The state lost 87,700 jobs for the year based on preliminary counts. But Hall expects that decline will end up closer to 100,000 once revisions are made in March.
That would represent the worst annual loss of jobs since 1944.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com
