COVID-19 Erased Two Years of Colorado Job Gains in March
By Jeremy Albright
Since mid-March, efforts to contain the spread of COVID-19 and avoid overloading our health care system have created historic job losses. By breaking down the data, it’s apparent just how deep the economic consequences of the pandemic are.
Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the US Department of Labor releases data on employment, unemployment, and the labor force for each state. Employment refers to the total number of workers who are currently employed, while unemployment is the number of workers who are out of work and looking for a new job. The labor force is the sum of those two numbers — everyone who is either working or looking for work. These measures are always important for measuring the health of Colorado’s economy, but they are especially critical now.
COVID-19 has caused significant unemployment. Colorado’s current unemployment rate (the number of unemployed workers as a percentage of the total labor force) shot up to 4.5 percent in March from 2.5 percent in February. By comparison, the last time Colorado’s unemployment rate was 4.5 percent or higher was September of 2014. Such a large increase in the unemployment rate in such a short span of time is shocking, but it doesn’t even capture the full picture.
In addition to rising unemployment, the labor force is shrinking due to the lack of available jobs. While total employment in Colorado fell by 108,000 in March, only 62,300 of the people who lost their jobs are considered unemployed. For another 45,700 workers, not only are their jobs gone, they’re not actively seeking out a new one and therefore aren’t considered unemployed under the technical definition. Figure 1 below shows how the numbers break down:
Similarly, we can learn more about the present employment situation by comparing today’s numbers to points in the past. Since the Great Recession, Colorado had been among the leading states for job growth, adding nearly 618,000 jobs between February of 2010 and February of 2020. The change in the number of jobs over the last month starkly contrasts with the accelerated job growth of the last decade. In March 2020, Colorado now has about as many jobs as it did in March 2018. COVID-19 has erased nearly all of the job growth of the past two years.
It remains to be seen just how much COVID-19 will damage Colorado’s economy in the weeks ahead, but the sacrifices businesses and employees are making are already evident. Next month’s state employment and unemployment report will give us a clearer picture of just how many of the last decade’s job gains have been wiped out by the pandemic.
