The annual crystal ball of Colorado’s economy swirled this week as economists and industry experts shared what is in store for the new year as part of the 2022 Colorado Business Economic Outlook, produced by the University of Colorado Boulder. “We’re pretty bullish overall on the macro economy,” Richard L. Wobbekind, associate dean of business […]
What's Working
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What’s Working: Colorado paid $30 million in bogus unemployment claims. It could have been worse.
It probably came as a shocker when Californians learned that their state had paid out $20 billion in fraudulent unemployment claims as of October since the COVID-19 pandemic began. That’s about the same amount the Golden State has borrowed from the U.S. government to provide benefits when its own unemployment fund ran out of money […]
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What’s Working: Colorado’s job recovery rate is the nation’s 10th fastest. So why is our jobless rate the 15th highest?
Colorado has come a long way since the start of the pandemic when, as with every state, the unemployment rate increased. The state’s rate jumped to 12.1% in April 2020, from 2.8% before the pandemic. The state’s jobless rate dropped to 5.4% in October, from September’s 5.6%. That, plus a bunch of other economic data, […]
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What’s Working: Colorado’s labor force is missing older adults, parents of young kids and international workers
The labor stories keep getting shared, and not just here on What’s Working. If you wander over to Facebook, the conversation has been quite lively around some of The Colorado Sun’s recent job stories, such as this one and this one. There are a number of folks who cannot find a job, so if you’re […]
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What’s Working: Need a job? Tech companies are hiring in Colorado as a pre-pandemic labor crunch continues
Long before COVID-19 and the ensuing labor crisis, the Colorado technology industry faced its own tight labor market. Four years ago, when Colorado’s unemployment rate was 2.3%, a local manager at job recruiter Robert Half told me that for some tech jobs the rate was even lower — more like 1%. Nineteen months into COVID, […]
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What’s Working: The Colorado disconnect continues between employers and the unemployed
The job stories continue to roll in about whether there is a labor shortage. Hearing from multiple sides, I continue to see a large disconnect in the jobs offered, the required skills and the people available to fill those spots and the work they can offer. Lisa Kunze, who has a master’s in education, wrote […]
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What’s Working: 24,000 unemployed Coloradans must pay back pandemic jobless benefits
The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t end on Sept. 4, even though federal unemployment benefits did. Last week, the jobless scene may have seemed quiet to outsiders, but it wasn’t. And this week, it became much worse, as 24,000 folks who’d received pandemic unemployment aid learned they must repay some of the money. But more on that […]
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What’s Working: As Colorado’s labor shortage blame game continues, most unemployed workers are actually back at work
If you look at job listings in Colorado, there’s more than 100,000 postings just on the state’s own job board. And as more than 100,000 people who were eligible for unemployment last week but are not this week, they’re looking for work. But I continue to receive mixed messages in my inbox that point to […]
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What’s Working: How much federal COVID relief went to unemployed Coloradans?
The day is finally here and some will weep but others will likely be cheering. It’s the last day Colorado will pay pandemic unemployment benefits, if you’re reading this on Sept. 4. According to Department of Labor and Employment officials, about 107,000 Coloradans will no longer be eligible while another 30,000 people will no longer […]
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What’s Working: There are more job openings than Coloradans on unemployment. Matchmaking isn’t easy.
The pandemic has created an out-of-balance workforce, and there could be more big changes next month. On one hand, somewhere around 100,000 Coloradans will stop receiving weekly unemployment checks after Sept. 4, when federal pandemic benefits end. On the other, thousands of employers are trying to fill 126,773 jobs, the state’s official job board showed […]