(The Center Square) — Unemployment remained unchanged in Colorado in May, staying at 4.8%.
The number of unemployed individuals decreased by just 100 to 158,700 from April to May, according to a report from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
This was the third consecutive month that unemployment in the state had stalled, pausing a consistent upward trend since 2022. Since then, the number of unemployed in Colorado has nearly doubled.
“This unemployment rate is also the highest it has been since September 2021, when it was 4.9%, and 0.6 percentage points above the national rate of 4.2%,” said a report from the Common Sense Institute of Colorado. “Historically, Colorado’s unemployment level has usually sat below the national average.”
This makes it one of the states in the nation with the highest unemployment rate, only outdone by a few states like Nevada, Michigan and California. This is according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In May, Colorado’s labor force decreased by 700 to 3.3 million.
This means that the share of Coloradans participating in the labor force was 67.7%, or 5% higher than the national average of 62.4%.
In an upset from past trends, the state’s private sector grew by 3,700 jobs, while government employment fell by 300 jobs. Most of those were in the federal government though.
“Although the government sector as a whole declined by 300 jobs in May, this net loss reflects a gain of 1,200 jobs in Colorado’s state and local government, which was outweighed by a decrease of 1,500 federal government jobs,” said the Common Sense report.
This is the first decline in total government jobs since October 2024, despite concerns about personnel cuts since President Donald Trump took office.
The state government just continues to get bigger, adding 8,900 jobs in the past year, compared to just 10,200 in the private sector.
In fact, the majority of the job growth in Colorado in the past year was spurred by government growth, with government employment growing by 12,000 jobs.
Industries like professional and business services have continued to trend down in the past year, while the trade, transportation, and utilities sector lost 1,200 jobs last month.
Since 2020, though, the state’s logging and mining sector has been one of the hardest hit, decreasing by nearly a quarter at 23%. In some good news for that sector, it has remained unchanged at 21,900 for four consecutive months.
