Business/Technology Reporter
Quick links: Value of Colorado’s trade | Local companies cite tariff impact | Job openings up | Take the reader poll | Denver restaurant numbers flat | Charter’s stock work perk | Security strike averted
What should you make of the nation’s shrinking economy in the first quarter?
As the U.S. gross domestic product fell 0.3% annually in the first quarter — the first contraction since the first quarter of 2022, according to the U.S. Commerce Department — the culprit wasn’t jobs or less consumer spending.
It was blamed on U.S. tariffs that had companies rushing to get more goods imported than exported, thus widening the trade deficit. The net difference shaved 4.8 percentage points off the nation’s GDP and that’s what did the quarter in.
Economists at the University of Colorado’s Leeds School of Business said they’ll release their first-quarter GDP update June 27.
But here in Colorado, U.S. trade data shows the value of Colorado exports to other countries dropped by 7.9% in February from a year ago. Imports grew 1.4%. February trade data is the latest available.
However, the difference was more stark between Colorado goods coming and going to China, the country hit with the highest U.S. import tariffs, at 145% (China matched them, so that impacted exports).
February exports to China from Colorado were down 37.6% from a year earlier, as seen in the chart below. Imports dipped 10.3% from February 2024 and have been falling since the pandemic, too, with annual declines in all but three of the last 30 months.
“We’re at sort of a weird moment where there’s a sense of foreboding that we think that the tariffs have a pretty significant negative impact, but it’s not really there in the data yet,” said Bill Craighead, an economist at the UCCS Economic Forum in Colorado Springs.
“But I had noticed some softness in the local (Colorado) data, even pre-dating the tariff announcements. The state payrolls have been weak in the Colorado Springs area,” he added. “My story about why the growth was slowing down in Colorado Springs last year was the impact of interest rates and the importance of real estate and construction here. That’s somewhat true I think for Colorado as a whole, not just us in Colorado Springs.”
His thoughts on a coming recession?
“It’s definitely a serious concern and trade policies look like they’re going to have a pretty substantial negative effect because you have businesses where their costs are not going to be what they planned,” he said. “Absent the tariffs and maybe to a smaller degree, the changes with the federal government, I don’t think we’d be talking about recession right now.”
Tariff impact noted in company reports
Companies like Stanley Black & Decker, Adidas and others are getting more specific about how much the tariffs will cost their companies.
Broomfield-based Crocs Inc. had warned about the tariff impact in February, but according to Bloomberg News, the casual footwear maker that manufacturers half its products in Vietnam told staff last month to watch expenses because of the tariff volatility.
Arrow Electronics, a global electronics distributor based in Centennial, shared a second-quarter outlook Thursday that mentioned “an expected 2% to 4% increase from newly implemented tariffs on global components sales.” However, the tariff impact on its finances is likely “negligible,” reported the Denver Business Journal, which estimated Arrow’s tax to be $200 million.
Other companies are warning of layoffs in Colorado, though not all are blaming tariffs. But after outdoor gear maker Thule Inc. warned the state’s labor department on April 16 of 40 layoffs at its Longmont facility, the Swedish company said Tuesday that it’s “implementing price increases in North America to offset cost increases from the newly imposed tariffs, even though we have two of our own factories in the US,” according to a company update.
➔ Global tariffs: Who’s charging what? See Bloomberg News’ tariff tracker
ICYMI: Take the poll
So far, about 30% of What’s Working readers who’ve taken the current reader poll feel a recession is coming this year. But 34% say we’re already in one. What do you think? Here’s your chance to weigh in and share a comment that we might use in a future story. Like this advice from Joan Bowen in Wellington:
“Keep supporting small local businesses in your community — helps keep money moving locally,” Bowen wrote.
➔ Take the new What’s Working reader poll at cosun.co/WWrecession
Colorado job openings up
Job growth may be slowing in Colorado but for some reason, there’s been an uptick in job openings, according to a quarterly update by Aspen Technology Labs for the Colorado Chamber of Commerce Foundation.
The number of jobs looking for workers at the end of March was 12.8% higher than early January. That’s approximately 14,420 more job vacancies, ending the first quarter with 127,000 job listings. That outpaced the U.S. rate of 7.7% and ranked Colorado third highest job-vacancy growth rate in the nation.
Chamber president Loren Furman said it was too early to say what was driving the growth but noted that regional workforce summits in the state could be a contributor. The cities with the largest rate of increased job listings were Rifle, up 33%; Steamboat Springs, up 19%; and Colorado Springs, up 14%.
Aspen tracks online job listings and has a proprietary process to remove duplicates. And the trend is similar to what the Bureau of Labor Statistics found in job openings for Colorado between late 2024 through February. Isabelle Woodrow, Aspen’s senior product manager, attributed most to a “bounce-back following an end-of-year hiring law,” she said in an email.
“Many postings automatically expire at year-end, and employers often reassess whether the roles are still needed before reposting. So, some of this Q1 growth is seasonal, effectively a rebound,” Woodrow said.
And although the vacancy number is up, the number of job listings in Colorado is down 0.7% from a year ago.
“We recognize there’s a lot of discussion about a cooling job market, but it’s important for us to share the data we’re seeing as an additional perspective,” she said. First-quarter data reflects the period before the tariffs took effect but “we’re already seeing signs of decline in April (and) job postings are down 3%,” she said.
➔ View Colorado job vacancies report
Sun economy stories you may have missed
➔ Front Range home values dip in latest property tax assessments, signaling some relief for homeowners. The typical homeowner won’t see major spikes in their 2026 tax bills like they did two years ago. >> Read story
➔ Report claiming environmental policies steal billions from Colorado’s economy based on bad math, advocates say. Study by the conservative Common Sense Institute pegs everything from lost coal jobs to higher utility bills on Colorado’s regulations, but environmental groups say correlation does not equal causation. >> Read story
➔ Colorado’s fight over pricier, “reformulated” gas grows more complicated. Here’s the latest. >> Read story
➔ A free apartment comes with strings attached for Denver RV dwellers — and no place to park. Some people living in large vehicles face a stark choice: Move into an apartment offered by All In Mile High and leave their vehicle or continue risking fines, fees, or arrest on the streets. >> Read story
➔ Colorado lawmakers, being watched across the country, scale back artificial intelligence law. Pushback from Gov. Jared Polis led to the proposed changes to delay the law for one year and exempt businesses with fewer than 500 employees in the first 15 months. >> Read story
➔ The latest victim of Trump cuts? Beetles keeping an invasive plant at bay in Colorado. A coalition using root-eating beetles to wage war on invasive leafy spurges has been cut off from its federal grant money, putting the program, and the Yampa River watershed, in jeopardy. >> Read story
Support The Sun It funds this free newsletter. Become a member!
Other working bits
➔ Denver restaurants had a flat 2024. The city of Denver’s final tally of the number of restaurants at the end of last year is finally in: There were 2,628 that self-reported the business as a restaurant, according to the city’s Finance Department. That’s pretty much flat from a year ago with just 35 new restaurants, up 1.3% overall. Sales tax collected was even flatter, increasing just $349,308 for the year to $131.1 million. We’ve updated an earlier story that looked at what the actual data says about the city’s food scene. >> Earlier story
➔ Telecom ups the perks for employees. Charter Communications was one of the first companies to roll out a $20 hourly minimum wage company-wide in 2022 when the labor shortage was in full swing. Now, it’s introduced an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, which essentially allows employees to buy company stock as a payroll deduction and get a matching Restricted Stock Unit based on how long they’ve been at the company. The RSUs fully vest after three years. The stock option “is the next step in that investment” in its workforce, said a company spokesperson.
The company employs 5,000 people in Colorado. And the perks must be helping. When we checked in with Charter in 2022 at the height of the labor shortage, it had 2,500 openings nationwide. Now, it has 1,300, including at least 75 job openings in Colorado mainly at its tech hub in Greenwood Village. >> See jobs
➔ Denver security officers strike averted for now. About 100 security officers who patrol government buildings in Denver voted to authorize a strike Tuesday over low pay, high turnover and unsafe working conditions. But the workers, who are employed by Securitas, decided to postpone a strike late Wednesday due to “overwhelming support across the city, the City of Denver and the Mayor’s Office” to help negotiations progress, according to a statement by organizers with the Service Employees International Union Local 105. Their contract expired Dec. 31. According to the expired contract, first year armed guards were paid $23.53 an hour with entry-level security agents starting at $19.19.
➔ Boulder’s 200 summer parks jobs are mostly filled. The city of Boulder’s Parks and Recreation department was looking for 200 people for seasonal summer gigs like counselors, lifeguards and park maintenance workers. The city called the response to the hiring campaign “overwhelmingly positive,” thanks to a “targeted social media outreach.” That said, there are still a few more openings.
Got some economic news or business bits Coloradans should know? Tell us: cosun.co/heyww
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
Miss a column? Catch up:
What’s Working is a Colorado Sun column about surviving in today’s economy. Email tamara@coloradosun.com with stories, tips or questions. Read the archive, ask a question at cosun.co/heyww and don’t miss the next one by signing up at coloradosun.com/getww.
Support this free newsletter and become a Colorado Sun member: coloradosun.com/join
The Colorado Sun is part of The Trust Project. Read our policies.
Corrections & Clarifications
Notice something wrong? The Colorado Sun has an ethical responsibility to fix all factual errors. Request a correction by emailing corrections@coloradosun.com.