Tamara Chuang | Business/Technology Reporter
Quick links: March unemployment rate and jobs report | DEN airport sixth busiest | Denver office conversions | Job fair for 55+
During the pandemic, many office workers had no choice but to go home and work. Four years later, a growing number of businesses appear to be allowing employees not just to work remotely, but outside of Colorado.
The trend showed up in state workers’ compensation insurance data, where the number of local businesses providing coverage to employees out of state has nearly tripled in the past 15 years.
According to Pinnacol Assurance, the state’s largest workers’ comp insurer, it’s also not just the usual types of companies, like finance and management. The insurer is seeing unlikely customers go remote like a local library with IT staff in Alabama, Florida and Virginia. Another is a Colorado construction company that has support staff in New Mexico. And it’s affecting the future of insurance.
“Right now, we have information that says over 50% of Colorado businesses have workers that are working outside the state of Colorado,” said Quincy Douglass, Pinnacol’s vice president of operations. “That’s something that we’re constantly looking at — how we invest in technology, services and partnerships to serve the growing dispersion of Colorado businesses and workers. We think we’re just still I would say maybe not at the beginning of this, but we don’t see it slowing down. I think it’s going to continue to grow.”
Back in 2009, 21.63% of workers’ comp policies held by businesses in Colorado covered multiple states. In 2019 before the pandemic, it was 44.61%. Now it’s 53.65%, according to Pinnacol, citing Colorado Division of Workers Comp Insurance and other sources.
The data doesn’t distinguish how out-of-state workers work. They may be working at home but they could also be folks who travel in their region or have a local office to stop by and work with other out-of-state colleagues. When one of the 50,000 businesses Pinnacol insures does have a worker move out of Colorado, it partners with another insurance carrier licensed in that state.
Pinnacol’s workers’ comp policies cover roughly 1 million Colorado workers across a variety of occupations. From educators and nonprofit employees to industries with greater exposure to injuries, such as construction, transportation, manufacturing and agriculture. While those roles aren’t really conducive for remote work, Douglass said it’s the other jobs at the same company that are moving to remote work.
“There’s always been an element of employers in Colorado having employees in multiple states and it’s a cross section of all industries. You can have a construction company, for instance, with some IT folks or marketing or administrative folks working in other states,” Douglass said. “But I think the remote flexibility across all employers made that more seamless for everyone.”
Offering remote work options was widely adopted by tech companies before and during the pandemic. It’s helped many recruit engineering and technology talent who didn’t want to leave their current location. Denver-based tech companies like Guild, which employs 1,200 people, and Ibotta, which employs more than 800, said that nearly half of their staff work outside Colorado or outside the Denver metro area.
It goes the opposite direction, too. Many out-of-state companies employ workers who live in Colorado. Twilio, a cloud communications company in San Francisco, adopted a “remote first” policy in May 2022. It created the Open Work program, giving every employee a $500 stipend to set up their remote workspace, according to the company.
A year later, it closed its Denver office, which had been home to SendGrid. In 2019, Twilio had acquired SendGrid, which had 325 employees at its downtown Denver headquarters at the time, according to a Denver Business Journal report.
“Twilio is a remote-first company,” said Alexandra Agnoletti, Twilio’s vice president of talent, experience & DEI, in an email. “As part of our shift to remote work, we closed our Denver office in 2023, but still have many Denver-based Twilions currently working in the region.”
The company, which said in its last annual report that 60% of its 5,867 global employees are in the U.S., doesn’t share the breakdown of employees by region. But there’s enough who still live in the Denver area that the city is one of 25 Twilio hubs. The hubs are not a physical office but a program with a local leader who plans in-person events and meetings quarterly.
“We are committed to Twilio’s Open Work program, which means we empower our employees to thrive regardless of location through flexibility, purposeful connection and opportunities to make an impact,” Agnoletti added.
Safer to work from home?
Job-related fatalities in Colorado declined in 2022 from the prior year, according to the latest data available. Falls, slips and trips were the third-leading cause of work-related fatalities at 15 in 2022, and down from 17 in 2021 and 22 in 2020.
But in 2019, there were 12. Some theories are that as some workers sat out the pandemic for health reasons or retirement, newer hires may not have received full safety training. Others wonder if worker shortages had some employees saving time by skipping a safety harness.
However, if more workers are indeed working from home, the number of workers’ comp claims at Pinnacol has declined, Douglass said.
“Since the pandemic, obviously, remote work has become very popular, for good reason,” he said. “We have not seen an increase of claim frequency for people falling down in their homes or that type of claim activity. So, that’s great news. We’ve actually seen a reduction in frequency.”
But there’s some unknowns to that since the data doesn’t tell all. Pinnacol wouldn’t know if workers just aren’t reporting a fall at home or accidentally tripping over a pet that ran underfoot.
Another reason, suggested Douglass: “With health care being so important and hopefully most Coloradans have health insurance, they may look to their health insurance and not their workers’ comp to cover that.”
Colorado’s March unemployment rate rises to 3.7%
While the nation’s unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point in March, Colorado’s increased two-tenths to 3.7%, the highest in two years, according to the monthly jobs report from the state Department of Labor and Employment. That was still lower than the U.S. rate of 3.8%.
Some context: The state’s labor force has lost about 4,500 workers since the recent December peak, which is often the result of more retirements, folks giving up on the job search and fewer newcomers to the Colorado job market. That pulled the labor force participation rate to 68%, the lowest since November 2022.
Meanwhile, the number of working-age unemployed Coloradans looking for a job increased by more than 10,000 since December, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
A growing number of companies have filed notices with the state’s labor department about job cuts, including 56 jobs by Atrium Hospitality, operator of the Crowne Plaza Denver Airport Convention Center, up to 210 by medical imaging provider Carestream Health when it shuts down its Windsor facility, and 92 jobs in Denver by background-check firm Checkr.
In March, employers continued to add 5,300 jobs with a little more than half at private companies, the rest in the government sector. Construction lost the most jobs during the month, down 1,500, while professional and business services gained the most, at 2,100.
That could change as more employers complete monthly surveys to help the state track who’s hiring. The labor department also revised how many jobs employers in February upward of nearly 2,000 jobs to 10,700.
March jobless rates statewide:
Here are unemployment rates for the state’s major metro areas. The rates aren’t seasonally adjusted so it’s best to compare them to Colorado’s nonadjusted rate of 3.8%.
At least local inflation fell in March …
➔ Not feeling Denver’s inflation’s drop to 2.8% in March as the national rate increased to 3.5%? Take the reader poll HERE.
Sun economy stories you may have missed
➔ Colorado’s startup community rallies behind Ibotta as Denver’s popular consumer app has IPO. Rare are startups that go from idea to a publicly traded company. Rarer still are when they’re homegrown in Colorado. >> Read story
➔ Plan to quadruple property taxes on short-term rentals in Colorado fails in late-night Capitol committee vote. Senate Bill 33 was voted down 6-1 in the Senate Finance Committee during its first hearing and after months of loud opposition from vacation rental owners and companies like Airbnb and Vrbo. >> Read story
➔ Thousands of affordable housing units are at risk in Colorado. A bill would help local governments buy them. House Bill 1175 would give local governments a “right of first refusal” to buy privately owned affordable housing once its rent restrictions expire. >> Read story
➔ Looking for energy rebates? Colorado has a new Google-built calculator to help you find them. Rewire America aims to put homeowners and contractors in touch with lucrative federal, state, local and Xcel rebates and credits for clean electric appliances and cars. >> Read story
➔ Eldora ski area claims “improper conduct” tainted patrollers’ vote to unionize. 76% of paid patrollers turned out for the election. Eldora management says more volunteer patrollers’ votes should have been considered. >> Read story
➔ Meow Wolf lays off 50 Denver employees during companywide reorganization. The immersive arts company, which opened its Denver location in 2021, laid off 159 employees in four states. >> Read story
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Other working bits
➔ DEN ranks as 6th busiest airport in 2023. That’s sixth busiest in the world, according to the Airports Council International based on passengers. Denver International Airport outranked Los Angeles, Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and Delhi. But Atlanta trounced everyone, though it’s kept that first-place finish since 2019. DIA has been ranked higher during the pandemic recovery (it was third in 2022) but last year, the laggards finally caught back up with Dubai in second (from fifth last year) and Tokyo at fifth (from 16th last year). That said, DIA officials said last year was the busiest on record with airlines flying 77.8 million passengers, up 12.3% from the prior year. >> The list
➔ Getting nowhere with your airline complaint? Tell the AG. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was in Colorado this week to announce a partnership with 15 state attorney general offices to more quickly investigate complaints about airline service. Colorado AG Phil Weiser was definitely on board. Essentially, DOT will give states access to its consumer-complaint system and train state workers on federal consumer laws covering airlines. >> Read story
➔ Where are the Denver office conversions? Commercial brokerage firm CBRE has put them on the map and counts 16 buildings in the Denver metro area. Only four are downtown and one is the old Colorado Art Institute at 1200 Lincoln St. As previously reported, the old art school is now the 10-story Art Studios, leasing 245-square-foot studio apartments. >> Check the map
➔ Team USA teams with guild to educate workers. Denver-based Guild, which connects workers to tuition-free education courtesy of employers, has partnered with the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee to provide education and career development opportunities for athletes. There are some eligibility requirements and according to Guild officials, there’s nearly 6,000 current and former Team USA athletes who may benefit. >> Details
➔ Job fair for workers 55+. Boulder’s Older Adult Services division is hosting a job fair April 25 from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. According to organizers, employers with job openings include the local school district, the city’s parks and recreation department and private companies involved in home health care, retail, transportation and hospitality (a local hotel). There will also be experts on hand to review resumes (bring a hard copy) and share strategies for older job-seekers (registration required). >> More details
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Thanks for sticking with me for this week’s report. Remember to check out The Sun’s daily coverage online. As always, share your 2 cents on how the economy is keeping you down or helping you up at cosun.co/heyww. ~ tamara
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