The crescendo of robust hiring in the years coming out of the pandemic grew quieter as 2024 wrapped up.
Colorado’s unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% in December from 4.3% in November with employers adding an estimated 300 nonfarm jobs in the final month of the year, according to an from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
That meager gain reflected an increase of 1,100 government jobs and the loss of 800 jobs in the private sector.
For the year, the state added an estimated 48,600 nonfarm jobs, with 32,600 coming from the private sector and 16,000 from local, state and federal governments, according to a survey of establishments.
Private sector gains were strongest in educational and health services, which added 12,000 jobs; professional and business services were up by 7,400; trade, transportation and utilities were up by 5,000 jobs, and construction rose by 4,400 positions.
The information supersector, which includes high-tech companies and traditional media, shed 3,800 jobs. Wholesale trade lost 2,700 jobs while administrative services dropped 1,900.
“At this time, the overall economy is expanding at a steady pace, but the United States economy is performing better than Colorado,” said Broomfield economist Gary Horvath in an email.
Colorado’s pace of job growth was 1.6% last year, which is down from a 2% rate in 2023. Aside from the tumult of the pandemic in 2020, the last time the state added jobs at a slower clip was in 2010.
The unemployment rate, still historically low, was the highest since November 2021 and above the U.S. unemployment rate of 4.1%.
Colorado workers saw pay increases and clocked more hours. The average workweek rose from 33.3 hours to 33.6 hours and hourly earnings rose from $36.95 to $39.63 last year, according to the report, which could be the last one for a while.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Dec. 18 said it had suppressed Colorado’s employment data because of quality concerns following the state’s switch to an upgraded unemployment insurance premium reporting system. The CDLE on Monday said it would stop issuing employment releases in 2025 until the BLS agreed the state’s numbers met its standards.
“The CDLE remains committed to producing high-quality data and is working with the BLS to limit disruptions to all future releases,” the CDLE said in a note attached to Monday’s report.
