Colorado’s job market shrank in the middle of 2025, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The state’s labor market contracted by 0.6% during the third quarter compared to the prior year, according to updated data from the federal agency. The overall U.S. job market grew by 0.1% during that timeframe, the data show.
“All states appear weak,” said Tim Wonhof with Colorado's Labor Market Information team in an emailed statement.
Wonhof noted employment weakness evident in a separate data set in sectors that are heavily concentrated in Colorado, such as professional and business services, mining and logging, and construction.
“These sectors make up nearly a quarter of Colorado jobs,” he said.
Even so, Colorado’s job growth has been mostly lagging the U.S. rate for about two years. The precise reasons behind the slide aren’t clear.
Job prospects in Denver, the state’s largest population center and economic hub, look particularly grim compared to the same time the prior year in the new federal data.
Denver’s job market shrank by 1.4% in the third quarter. That ranks the county 328th out of the 373 counties tracked by the BLS across the U.S.
State economists have pointed to data collection issues that might be skewing Colorado’ jobs numbers. Colorado’s labor department rolled out a new unemployment insurance computer system in 2023 that introduced significant errors in data collection.
But it’s been years since the new system rolled out. In December, the state labor department said the problem has since been fixed.
Jobs numbers are repeatedly revised as more information comes in over time. The monthly numbers that garner the big headlines nationally are based on voluntary responses from businesses. Those numbers have been prone to unusually large revisions in recent years.
The data set released Tuesday is based on information from unemployment insurance reports that companies across the U.S. are legally required to submit. That makes it a far more reliable data set than the initial monthly jobs reports.
The updated data suggest that Colorado’s employment numbers will be revised down when numbers are finalized in the coming months, CU economist Brian Lewandowski said.
“I think what this is suggesting is that 2025 will come in below zero,” he said. “We will have recorded job losses in 2025 if this plays out as we expect it to.”
The last time the state recorded job losses before the COVID-19 pandemic was in 2010, Lewandowski said. The losses aren’t steep at roughly 5,000 jobs, he said. But the downward trend matters.
“It’s an interesting signal that it's negative,” he said.
To read more stories from Colorado Public Radio, visit www.cpr.org.
