With Weld County leading the way, Colorado’s largest counties added jobs at a much faster clip than the national average last year.
Weld County ranked third out of 323 large U.S. counties, boosting its employment by 4.3 percent in December from a year earlier.
That increase was more than triple the U.S. average of 1.4 percent, according to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Weld County is hitting on all cylinders — agriculture, natural resources, manufacturing and business services, said Eric Berglund, president and chief executive of Upstate Colorado Economic Development.
“You have to have a business climate that is supportive of job creation, in terms of policies, tax structure and the appropriate workforce,” he said.
Among the county’s big scores: JBS USA’s expansion of its carrier division and relocation of corporate jobs from Pilgrim’s Pride in Greeley, and the construction of a new cheese plant from Leprino Foods.
Those came in addition to a surge in petroleum drilling in the county and strong farm prices.
Job gains should continue into 2012 with PTI Group, a Canadian maker of modular housing, setting up a manufacturing plant in Johnstown, and Teletech’s decision to add a call center in Greeley.
The nine Colorado counties in the BLS report averaged employment growth of 2.6 percent, with Arapahoe, Douglas, Boulder and Larimer coming in behind Weld.
When it came to compensation in Colorado, however, weekly wages shrank at a much faster pace here than elsewhere, falling 2.9 percent on average among the counties included versus 1.7 percent nationally.
Two counties in particular had big decreases. Denver’s weekly wage decline of 4.8 percent ranked 305th out of the 323 counties, and Douglas County scraped the bottom at 318th with an 8.6 percent decline.
Denver’s wage declines were concentrated in two areas in particular — the information sector, which saw average weekly wages fall by nearly a third, and the management of companies, down by 18 percent, said Patty Silverstein, an economist with Development Research Partners.
CenturyLink’s acquisition of Qwest, which shifted high-paying corporate- headquarters jobs to Louisiana, likely pushed the city’s average weekly wage lower, Silverstein said.
She doesn’t have as clear a link for Douglas County’s big drop. But Silverstein said it was also tied to management of companies. Wages in that category, which covers top executives, fell from about $8,400 a week in 2010 to $5,300 in 2011.
Looking more broadly, the trend of employers hiring new workers at lower pay in a tough job market also appears to be continuing.
“Companies generally handed out minimal raises and brought new workers on at bargain levels,” she said.
Aldo Svaldi: 303-954-1410, asvaldi@denverpost.com or
