Colorado employers continued their autumn hiring spree, adding another 9,000 net payroll jobs last month on top of a revised 13,800 they added in September, according to a monthly update from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
Private sector jobs rose by 7,800 positions while governments added 1,200 jobs, bringing the total to 3.02 million payroll jobs in the state.
Hiring last month was strongest in professional and business services at 2,800, leisure and hospitality at 2,500 and trade, transportation and utilities at 1,100. No sector had significant job losses between September and October and the initial count of 12,700 in September was boosted by 1,100 after revisions.
Over the past year, the state has added 59,500 net nonfarm jobs, with 40,000 coming in the private sector and 19,500 in the public sector. The largest annual gains have been in education and health services with 11,400; leisure and hospitality with 7,000 and professional and business services with 6,400. Information, which includes newspaper publishing as well as software publishing, lost 3,800 jobs, and manufacturing was down 1,400.
Colorado’s annual job growth rate of 2% surpasses the U.S. rate of 1.4% and over the past three months the state has had some of the strongest percentage job gains in the country, said Broomfield economist Gary Horvath in an email.
“Overall, the recent release of employment data paints a favorable picture of the Colorado labor market and the overall economy,” he said.
But the gains are not evenly spread, with some sectors stronger than others, Horvath said. And despite strong hiring, the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate crept up from 4% in September to 4.1% in October, matching the U.S. rate of 4.1%.
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