Colorado’s unemployment rate continued its slow but steady climb in August, rising one-tenth of a percentage point from the month before to hit 4.0%, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment reported Friday.
The last time Colorado’s jobless rate reached that mark was in January 2022, the state agency said. While Colorado’s unemployment rate edged up in August, the national rate slipped one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.2%. Colorado was one of only six states to see their unemployment rate climb in August from the month before, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. South Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate in the nation in August at 2.0%.
An unemployment rate in the vicinity of 4%–4.5% is considered the “natural rate,” which is normal movement from job to job, said Tatiana Bailey, executive director of the nonprofit Data-Driven Economic Strategies in Colorado Springs. “It does not imply a high level of layoffs,” she said in an email.
According to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment:
• The number of unemployed in the state grew by 2,200 in August to 128,500.
• Colorado’s labor force increased by 4,100 in August to 3,247,000. The state’s jobless rate edged up largely due to that increase in the labor force, Bailey said. “If more people are entering the labor force, they don’t all find jobs right away and that will increase the unemployment rate,” she said in her email.
• Employers in the state added 7,400 nonfarm payroll jobs from July to August for a total of 2,997,400 jobs; private sector payroll jobs grew by 7,700 while government shed 300 jobs.
The jobless rate, labor force, total employment and the number of unemployed are based on a survey of households; nonfarm payroll jobs estimates are based on a survey of business establishments and government agencies. However, numbers are known to change.
For example, July estimates of total nonfarm payroll jobs were revised down to 2,990,000; the over-the-month change from June to July was a gain of 800 rather than the originally estimated increase of 4,800, the state reported. Monthly revisions are based on additional responses from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates, the state agency explained.
Revisions aren’t unusual; nationwide, employers added 818,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months ending in March than first reported, according to revised data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in August. But Colorado has been struggling more than others to capture accurate data; it recorded the biggest change to its employment numbers of any state, recording 72,000 fewer jobs than first reported, according to those preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics benchmark revisions. (Monthly reports are revised throughout the year as more data comes in through the process known as benchmarking.)
