Colorado is showing slow but positive job growth but has a long way to go to reach pre-recession employment levels, economists said Friday after the state said July unemployment was 8.5 percent.
The Colorado Department of Labor said the rate was the same as June. Employers added 3,200 nonfarm payroll jobs between June and July for a workforce total of 2.24 million jobs. Government jobs declined by 900, and the private sector added 4,100.
Alexandra Hall, the department’s chief economist, said the state has added jobs in eight of the past 10 months, indicating Colorado is “a slowly improving market.”
“It is an anemic but positive pattern of job growth,” she said.
But, Hall said, much stronger levels of hiring are needed before Colorado can recoup jobs lost in the recession.
Richard Wobbekind, an economist at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, said the projection for growth in 2011 is 10,000 jobs.
“It is going to take 150,000 jobs to bring it down to pre-recession levels. We have a long way to go,” he said.
Wobbekind predicted it will take four years to reach pre-recession employment levels. He noted that during good times Colorado has a 4.5 percent unemployment rate.
Both Wobbekind and Hall said Colorado is affected by the global economic turmoil, which could hurt the state in the coming months.
“We are really tossed by the winds of the global economy,” Hall said.
Robert McGowan, a management professor at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, said the Colorado economy is in a “stagnant mode.”
“But at least we are holding steady,” McGowan said. “We are treading water.” As states go, Colorado is “in the middle of the pack,” he said.
McGowan believes the state will continue to “hold steady,” noting agriculture and tourism are key sectors of the state economy. Agriculture is doing fine, while tourism may see a slight drop, he said.
Over the past year, the unemployment rate is down from 8.8 percent in July 2010. During the same period, the number of Coloradans participating in the labor force declined 8,500, total employment increased by 1,600 and the number of unemployed decreased 10,100.
