Oct. unemployment rate remains at 7.5 percent in Colorado Springs area
The unemployment rate in the Colorado Springs area in October was unchanged from the previous month at 7.5 percent, even as job losses remained at record levels, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment reported Friday.
The area’s jobless rate has stayed below 8 percent for the past three months after hovering around 8 percent for most of the first half of the year. Most of the improvement, however, is the result of people leaving the area’s labor market rather than returning to work. The department reported that the number of people either employed or looking for work has dropped by more than 15,000, or 4.8 percent, during the past six months after seasonal adjustments.
“It is clear that the local labor force is shrinking because people are discouraged and aren’t looking for jobs because there aren’t any available,” said Dave Bamberger of Bamberger & Associates, a local economic research and consulting firm.
The lack of improvement in the area’s unemployment rate last month reflected a continuing decline in local payrolls, which in October were down 4.3 percent, or 11,200 jobs, from a year ago to 247,100. Those numbers, adjusted for seasonal changes, don’t reflect residents who are self-employed. Nearly half the losses came in manufacturing and retailing and another third were in the tourism and professional and technical services industries.
“This is history in the marking — we have never before had that level of job losses on a percentage basis. I don’t think we are out of the woods yet,” Bamberger said. “I would expect that it will take at least three years to recover to the level where this started.”
Colorado’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 6.9 percent in October, the lowest monthly rate since January. That rate was down slightly from 7 percent in September but above the 5.3 percent rate of October 2008. Although the unemployment rate declined, the number of working Coloradans also dropped by 9,600, in the month, indicating that more people are giving up looking for work.
—
Contact the writer at 636-0234
