Reporter
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Pueblo resident Jim Spitzer has a message for young people who want an in-demand career that crosses industries and comes with a fat salary: Get your airframe and powerplant, i.e., airplane mechanics, degree, and send your resume to a small shop, a big shop … Caterpillar or Disney?
That’s right. Spitzer is a 73-year-old contract mechanic and he’s been wrenching on planes for 54 years. His speciality: private jets like the one he maintains for a Saudi prince or the other one owned by 1996 astronaut Donald Pettit.
Spitzer — along with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Boeing and business analysts all over — says the aviation industry is in a massive pickle because it had a 10% shortage of airline maintenance mechanics in 2025. That shortage is expected to grow as high as 27% by 2027, and with a giant wave of retiring mechanics coming, the global demand for new ones is forecast to be 716,000 by 2042.
But the pay scale hasn’t kept up with the trends, so Spitzer says people who get trained in things like electronics, hydraulics, body work and sheet metal work are highly sought after by other industries. Those include Caterpillar, the American manufacturer of construction, mining and other engineering equipment, and Walt Disney World, where “guys can repair a kiddie car, paint it and put it together very quickly.”
Alas, this recruitment of aviation techs is creating problems in aviation. Major
aircraft builders like Airbus are seeing supply chain shortages for parts and pieces, engine durability complications, geopolitical instability, and a dearth of bodies-plus-brains to do the maintenance, repair and overhaul required that ensure an aircraft’s airworthiness.
What’s more, the Caterpillars and Disneys, as well as major airlines and Denver International Airport, are paying new recruits double what they could be making working on small airplanes. Even more than a decade ago, Spitzer says a kid who worked for him while attending aviation school in Denver was getting close to graduation and the shop Spitzer was contracting with wanted to hire him.
But the kid came in a couple days later saying he had been hired at DIA, and when Spitzer asked what airline, he said, “I’m not going to work for an airline, Mr. Spitzer. I’m going to work for the company that maintains the conveyor belt for the baggage system. The airlines want to start me off at $15 an hour but this company will start me at $28 an hour.”
Spitzer says he also spoke with the vice president of a worldwide airline who told him they hire 100 mechanics a month but out of that 100 “they might get 10 that are knowledgeable and show up to work on time.”
And all of this has trickled down to Colorado, whose aviation sector is experiencing significant growth, with 66 public-use airports generating $68.9 billion in annual business revenue and supporting over 348,500 jobs in 2025, according to a Colorado Aviation Economic Impact Study by the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Enter the Business Funding and Incentives Division of the Office of Economic Development and International Trade, and the Office of Just Transition within the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment supporting a new aviation maintenance technician program through Pueblo Community College.
It’s under development by the CAE flight training center, which previously housed the U.S. Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training program.
In November, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved $471,423 to support the program as part of an ongoing effort by the Polis administration, OEDIT and OJT to boost communities that have relied on coal mines and coal-fired power plants for employment to find new sources of jobs and property tax revenues.
Gov. Jared Polis said the grant will drive economic development in Pueblo County and prepare the Pueblo Memorial Airport for the future, following a boost in its weekly roundtrip flights to Denver last May and the U.S. Air Force ending a $835 million contract that allowed undergraduate pilots to train there earlier this month.
Spitzer said the new program at Pueblo Community College is set to start this fall with 15 students. After 18 months of training for which there isn’t an established cost yet, they’ll walk away with an aviation maintenance tech certificate. He said it’s sad they can’t get the program going any sooner, “but we’ve got to follow the state education guidelines” and “this being an aviation deal, the Federal Aviation Administration also has their own set guidelines.”
That means the instructors will have to be aircraft mechanics, but those are also hard to come by.
“The Spartan College of Aeronautics at the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport in Broomfield is having trouble getting instructors, because if you have an airframe and powerplant mechanics license, you’re able to do anything, and that school’s offering their instructors $75,000 a year to teach. But if you just went down the street or across the street” to someplace like Pilatus Aircraft USA “you’ll make $80-$90,000 just turning wrenches and fixing an airplane and stuff. So it’s hard to find instructors because the pay scale is going up.”
Sure enough, Indeed’s job listing site shows Pilatus Aircraft USA is looking for maintenance techs to wrench on business planes for a starting salary between $78,500 and $105,975. But you need five years of related experience and a preferred one year of Pilatus aircraft knowledge and turbine engine maintenance experience.
Yet Spitzer, who is working as a consultant supporting Pueblo Community College to implement the program, says don’t worry. They’ve already had seven promising instructors apply, including a retired Navy vet.
Section by Tracy Ross | Reporter
Colorado labor force shrinks, unemployment rate drops to 3.8%
December job numbers came out this week. While fewer Coloradans are unemployed, the state’s labor force continued to shrink, according to preliminary data from the state Department of Labor and Employment.
Both factors contributed to the state’s unemployment rate falling one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.8%, and lower than the U.S. rate of 4.4%. Colorado’s rate has been lower than the nation’s since August after being higher for 16 months.
The state’s labor force shrunk 0.6% by the end of 2025, losing 20,280 people. But overall, that’s not a lot since the state labor force is still at 3,259,440 working-age adults and near its all-time high in January. People leave the labor force to take care of their family, retire or just stop looking for a job.
But the share of folks working or looking for work has dropped a bit to 64.3%, down half a percentage point from a year ago. That was more than expected by economist Bill Craighead, program director of the UCCS Economic Forum in Colorado Springs.
“We’d expect it to be trending gradually downwards just due to the population aging, but the decline in 2025 was more than I’d expect based on that, so it may be a sign that some people decided to give up on looking for work,” Craighead said in an email. “That would make the decline in the state’s unemployment rate look less positive.”
There are also fewer people moving to Colorado, even as the state’s population topped 6 million last year. But population growth slowed to 0.4% last year, the lowest annual change in decades. Net migration, long a steady source of new working-age adults, meant the state added 3,256 people last year, compared with 58,308 a year earlier, according to the State Demography Office.
In December, Colorado added 1,200 jobs, split between 300 for private employers and 900 for government. The numbers will be revised as more employer surveys are collected. For November, the preliminary estimate of 2,700 new jobs was cut in half after revisions. Instead, employers added 1,300 jobs in November.
While job growth has slowed, the state added 23,000 jobs since December 2024, a 0.8% annual growth rate and double the national rate of 0.4%. And faring better than other states is encouraging, Craighead said.
“It wasn’t great growth by historical standards but given what’s happening with population and immigration we have to adjust our expectations, though it’s hard to know by exactly how much,” he said. “It’s definitely somewhat of a mixed picture right now.”
More December job notes:
>> View December jobs report
Section by Tamara Chuang | Business/Technology Reporter
➔ Related: Colorado women earn 81 cents on every dollar earned by men, and child care costs are making it worse. National and state women’s advocacy groups are calling for changes in child care, job discrimination, maternal health care >> Read story
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Sun economy stories you may have missed
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➔ Surveillance, captive-audience and wholesale pricing are in Colorado Democrats’ cost-of-living crosshairs. Many business groups are already lobbying against the measures. Gov. Jared Polis, as well as more moderate Democrats at the Capitol, could pose a roadblock to the bills becoming law, too. >> Read story
➔ Plan to cut Medicaid rates for Coloradans with disabilities gets no support from governing board, moves ahead anyway. State Medicaid officials said they have authority to continue with the plan through an executive order from Gov. Jared Polis and that they will ask again for board approval >> Read story
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➔ $200 million in federal funding banked to promote and install heat pumps, other clean energy projects in Colorado. EPA grant to the Denver Regional Council of Governments survived clawbacks of Biden-era funding. Now, Power Ahead Colorado plans work including job training for nearly 5,000 people in the renewables industry. >> Read story
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Other working bits
➔ Colorado Springs’ 2025 economy. At its annual event, the Colorado Springs Chamber and EDC said this week that the the region added 1,115 new jobs, received $499.4 million in capital investment and announced new projects, including Swire Coca-Cola, which included a $475 million manufacturing plant and 170 jobs; ITS, which plans to add 500 new aerospace and defense jobs; and Swisspod, the hyperloop project. The chamber also noted that five major housing developments are moving forward, as well as construction on 1,200 new apartment units. >> More details
➔ More year-end reports on Colorado’s housing market published. While the Colorado Association of Realtors released the stats on 2025’s for-sale market earlier this month, other reports are now coming in too. ATTOM, a California-based property data research firm, shared national data, including that the median sale price hit a high of $360,000.
Different parts of the state were highlighted, including Colorado Springs, for having one of the highest increases in the length of time people are staying in the same home, rising 16% to 8.43 years, which was a tad lower than the national tenure of 8.55 years; and Denver, for one of the lowest rates of sales of foreclosed homes to lenders. Denver’s rate tied with Boston, San Diego and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at 0.4%. The U.S. rate was 1.3%, with Louisiana at the highest, at 3.9%. >> See report
➔ Let the tax season begin! Colorado began accepting 2025 tax returns this week and encourages taxpayers to use the state’s online system, at Revenue Online, or other accepted tax software. Another link from the Department of Revenue to keep handy: Check your return’s status at tax.colorado.gov/refund.
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You made it through January! Thanks for sticking with us. Share your 2 cents on how the economy is keeping you down or helping you up at cosun.co/heyww. ~ tamara & tracy
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