(The Center Square) – Colorado’s unemployment rate decreased slightly in September, dropping a tenth of a point from August to 4.1%.
Released last week, these numbers are the first look at unemployment numbers in Colorado since the federal government shutdown delayed the regular monthly reports from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The shutdown lasted from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12, and, while the government is retroactively releasing the September unemployment numbers, it will skip the October report. The November unemployment report is expected in January.
Colorado’s unemployment rate is down from last September’s 4.5%. Earlier this year, Colorado saw some of the highest unemployment since September 2021. In the past few months, though, it has been consistently trending down from its high of 4.8%.
In September, the national unemployment rate was 4.4%, which was a 0.1% increase from the previous month. While the national unemployment rate has been trending upwards, Colorado’s has been trending down.
The number of unemployed individuals decreased by 4,800 to 134,300 from August, according to a report from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
The report wasn’t all good news, though.
Duplicating a similar decrease from previous months, Colorado’s labor force decreased by 3,400 to 3.27 million. That comes while the labor force is actually increasing nationally.
Yet, Colorado still outperforms nationally. Currently, 67.3% of Colorado’s population is participating in the labor force statewide, compared to 62.4% nationally.
The report also found that the government saw significantly more job growth than the private sector, despite concerns about budget cuts on both the state and federal level in Colorado. In September, the private sector lost 200 jobs while the government gained 700 jobs.
That means in the past year that the private sector increased by 10,400 jobs. Government jobs also saw significant growth, adding 7,700 jobs.
The professional and business sector saw the largest increase in September, while trade, transportation, and utilities saw the biggest declines. Throughout the year, the largest private sector job gains have been in educational and health services, leisure and hospitality, and information.
While unemployment is lower in Colorado than nationally, Colorado’s rate of job growth since September 2024 was just 0.6%, compared to the national rate of 0.8%.
