Colorado’s economic recovery is steady and broad-based but moderate at best, Federal Reserve economist Mark Snead told a Denver audience.
“The adjustment process continues, not only nationally but in Colorado as well,” he said at the Federal Reserve’s Economic Forum in Denver on Thursday evening.
The state has recovered only about 30,000 of the 150,000 jobs it lost in the recession, said Snead, who oversees the Kansas City Fed’s Denver branch.
Mining, tourism, education and health care, transportation and wholesale trade are sectors adding jobs here at a faster pace than the U.S. average in the 12 months through August.
The state is gaining jobs but at a slower rate than the country overall in professional and business services, retail trade and manufacturing.
And Colorado continues to suffer outsized losses in construction, financial services and the information sectors.
When it comes to government jobs, the state matches the 1.3 percent decline nationally seen in federal employment over the past year.
But local governments have cut jobs at a much slower pace in Colorado than elsewhere, and the state actually has added jobs, providing a support to the labor markets.
Overall, Colorado is tracking the anemic U.S. recovery, which has restored only 20 percent of the jobs lost in the recession, Snead said.
Monthly payroll counts, however, appear to be underestimating recent job gains and could be revised significantly higher based on a more accurate quarterly census.
“We have some positive revisions in our future,” Snead predicted.
On the positive side, cattle and crop prices are strong, boosting incomes in rural parts of the state.
Tourism also has rebounded, with air traffic at Denver International Airport up 10 percent from before the recession and hotel vacancies in most areas back to pre-recession levels.
On the negative side, home sales during the peak spring and summer season were a disappointment, and home prices are facing downward pressure, he said.
Only half as many rigs are looking for oil and gas in the state as before the recession — one reason, Snead joked, that Grand Junction’s new motto is “flat is the new up.”
Broomfield economist Gary Horvath, in a separate report, said Colorado employment gains have accelerated in recent months, easing fears of another recession.
“Sectors that account for about two-thirds of total employment are performing at the same level as they did in 2006, the year of the greatest job growth in the past decade,” Horvath said.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or
