JOB NUMBERS
The Colorado unemployment rate remains steady, but far fewer oil and gas workers are making claims.
Early last year, natural resource workers flooded Colorado unemployment rolls, accounting for around 7 percent of unemployment benefit claims paid out in the state — way more than the 1 percent they usually represent.
But last month, unemployment claims from mining workers dropped to around 1.5 percent of the total, said Ryan Gedney, a senior economist with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
“With rest of the Colorado economy doing well, and the unemployment rate so low, if you want a job you can most likely find one,” Gedney said.
Last month, 128 mining workers filed a new claim for unemployment benefits, down from 293 workers who filed new claims in September 2015. There were 745 mining workers continuing a claim for unemployment benefits last month versus 1,160 mining workers who did so in September 2015, Gedney said.
Mining employment is down 10,900 jobs from the peak of 36,400 reached in December 2014. But last month, for the first time since that old high, employment in mining, which is split 80 percent petroleum and 20 percent coal, metals and other materials, didn’t fall month-over month.
Statewide, non-farm payroll employment fell by 300 between August and September on a seasonally-adjusted basis, with governments shedding 2,900 jobs and the private sector adding 2,600 jobs, according to an employment situation report the state released on Friday.
The number of unemployed workers in the state hasn’t changed much the past year.
Colorado’s seasonally adjusted employment rate dropped to 3.6 percent in September from 3.8 percent in August and is where it was in September 2015.
So what happened to those 10,900 workers who were shaken out of mining jobs?
Unemployment benefits last up to 63 weeks in Colorado. Workers who held out for a rebound in oil prices that never came might have exhausted their benefits and dropped out of the labor force.
Some displaced oil and gas workers might have returned home to states like Texas or Oklahoma and never filed in Colorado, Gedney said.
The most likely scenario, however, is that those displaced workers moved onto other jobs, such as construction, where contractors are desperate for workers.
“They will go into construction,” said Brianna Woods, manager of registration with Weld County Employment Services. Some former oil and gas workers are skilled welders, making them marketable in industry, she said.
A lot of truck drivers working the fields upgraded their commercial licenses and took on other driving jobs.
Wherever they went, Gedney said it is likely that those mining workers took a big cut in pay. And for that reason, they may be biding their time until oil and gas drilling ramps up again.
Oil production in the state this year is down about 8 percent from the record levels reached in 2015, said Broomfield economist Gary Horvath. Employment in the mining sector has fallen closer to 30 percent from its peak, although some of those losses are linked to closures at Colorado coal mines.
That coal production and associated jobs may be tougher to recover, given the large number of coal power plants retiring and the concentration of jobs in more rural areas. But the outlook for a recovery in oil and gas looks better.
“The good news is the rate of year-overyear job losses is declining. With the price of a barrel of oil at $50, there is an outside chance that oil and gas jobs might be added in 2016,” Horvath said.