Economist: Colorado added 25 percent more jobs in 2014 than feds originally reported

Colorado added 15,700 more jobs last year than initially reported by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, according to a Broomfield-based economist, a difference of nearly 25 percent.

The bureau originally said Colorado added just 63,200 non-seasonal jobs based on monthly Current Employment Statistics data compiled in mid-2014.

But Broomfield economist Gary Horvath, former managing director of the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Leeds School of Business research division said the actual figure is 78,900.

This figure come from an annual analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages data by Horvath.

“It was pretty significant,” he said. The data “was showing a pretty large difference.”

Horvath said the discrepancy was due to differences between non-seasonal and seasonal employment and unexpected growth in several industry categories.

Monthly Current Employment Statistics come from samples of business employment figures while the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which Horvath examined, track employee counts from individual businesses. The bureau released revised figures last week.

The increase marked the fourth consecutive year that employment growth occurred in the state. Construction; health care; accommodation and food services; and professional, scientific and technical services led the employment growth. Those five sectors accounted for 60 percent of job growth in 2014.

The 78,900 added in 2014 represented a 3.3 percent increase compared to 2013. Only one sector, the federal government, lost jobs.

“The revised data and activity on the streets suggest that Coloradans will see a continuation of the steady job growth experienced in 2013 and 2014,” Horvath said. “However, the state faces some headwinds.”

Layoffs are expected if oil prices stay low for an extended period, according to Horvath. The industry employed about 1.4 percent of the Colorado workforce last year.

Various regions have performed better than the state as a whole since 1991, Horvath reported.

• The Boulder area has added jobs at an annualized rate of 2.1 percent compared to 2 percent for the state.
• The Fort Collins-Loveland area has added jobs at an annualized rate of 2.7 percent.
• The Greeley area added jobs at an annualized rate of 3.1 percent compared to 2 percent for the state.