SURVEY: FIRMS SAY LOW JOBLESS RATE HINDERING HIRING

Metro Denver’s low unemployment rate is hindering business-expansion plans, but employers aren’t giving up on trying to fill vacant positions, according to a new survey from Korn Ferry, a global human resources consulting firm.

In April, the unemployment rate in metro Denver stood at a low 2.5 percent, on par with April 2017, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The region hasn’t seen a run of unemployment rates this low since the tech boom in 1999 and 2000.

About six in 10 of the business professionals that Korn Ferry surveyed said the shortage of talent was affecting the ability to grow, while the remainder didn’t seen any impact.

Despite the shortages, about half said they had plans to hire more people next year than they hired this year.

More than two-thirds of business professionals surveyed said it was either somewhat harder or much harder to find qualified help than it was three years ago.

About half of those surveyed in the Denver area said the caliber of job candidates was the same as three years ago, while 38 percent thought it was somewhat or much better. Only 13 percent described a deterioration in the quality of the workforce.

Technical jobs were the hardest to fill, followed by finance and sales, the survey respondents said.