Fort Collins recorded the second biggest annual jump in employment through June out of 388 metro areas in the country, .
The Fort Collins metro area, which includes Larimer County, saw non-farm employment rise by 11,600 between June 2016 and June 2017, for a growth rate of 7.2 percent. Only Manhattan, Kan., with a quarter of the jobs of Fort Collins, did better, rising 7.8 percent.
Greeley and Weld County ranked 35th in the country with an increase in employment of 3,600, a 3.7 percent increase. Before oil prices took a dive in late 2014, Weld County consistently ranked on top for job gains, then but has since crawled back.
Metro Denver ranked 94th with a 2.6 percent gain in employment, while metro Colorado Springs ranked 109th with a 2.4 percent gain in employment, while Boulder was in the middle of the pack, 188th, with a 1.8 percent gain.
Grand Junction, which includes all of Mesa County in its metro area, was the state’s worst performer, barely avoiding a stall with 0.2 percent growth in employment that ranked 330th.
The nation’s weakest showing came out of Casper, Wyo. Employment fell by 1,500 or 3.8 percent. The due to the oil downturn between 2014 and 2016. Unlike Weld County, it hasn’t recovered.
