January unemployment rate stayed below national rate
The ranks of the employed and people seeking to become employed continued to grow in Colorado in January, achieving a relative equilibrium that locked in the statewide unemployment rate at 3 percent for a fifth consecutive month.
The number of nonfarm payroll jobs in the state increased by 7,100 to reach just under 2.7 million, while total employment increased by 4,000 to about 2.9 million, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment said Monday.
Meanwhile, the number of people actively participating in the labor force increased even faster, resulting in another 500 people being considered unemployed. Because of rounding, the unemployment rate remained unchanged from December.
Colorado continues to outperform the U.S. as a whole when it comes to jobs. The national unemployment rate remained at 4.1 percent in January. That figure is likely to change after a nationwide hiring surge in February.
Colorado’s adjusted year-end unemployment rate for 2017 was 2.8 percent, fourth-lowest in the country. That is the best the state has finished in the U.S. rankings since at least 1976, said Ryan Gedney, a senior economist with the state labor office.
Job growth numbers were adjusted upward for 2017 to 2.2 percent, tying Colorado for the sixth-fastest rate in the country. That represents 67,400 jobs — 57,300 of them in the private sector. The largest gains came in the leisure and hospitality (9,800) and construction (8,200) industries.
Even with the upward adjustment, 2017 remains the slowest job growth year in Colorado since 2011. That year, the first year of growth following the Great Recession, saw the number of jobs in the state tick up by 1.7 percent.
“Job growth is slowing as this expansion ages,” Gedney said. “But I think when you compare Colorado to the rest of the nation, it’s very healthy considering our rank. We’re the only state with a very low unemployment rate and growth over 2 percent.”
Average hourly earnings in Colorado hit $28.24 last month, up from $27.42 in January 2017.