Unemployment drops as regional job growth continues

Boulder County’s unemployment rate in October dipped below 3 percent for the first time since May of 2007 as all four counties in the region continued to see their jobless rates drop, with Larimer hitting 3 percent, Weld hitting 3.6 percent, and Broomfield hitting 4 percent.

The figures come from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment’s survey of households.

Boulder County’s October unemployment rate was 2.9 percent, with 182,423 people employed and 5,461 looking for work. That was just a shade higher than the 2.8-percent rate in May of 2007, and it marked the best October rate for Boulder County since hitting 2.2 percent in 2000.

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Boulder County’s rate was down from 3.1 percent in September and down from 5.0 percent in October of last year.

The biggest year-over-year drop locally came in Weld County, where the rate was 3.6 percent in October versus 6.5 percent for the same month a year ago. Weld had unemployment of 3.8 percent in September.

Larimer County’s rate hit 3.0 percent, down from 3.2 percent in September and 5.1 percent a year ago.

Broomfield County, meanwhile, saw its rate decrease from 5.7 percent a year ago and 3.7 percent in September to 3.4 percent in October of this year.

The strong new numbers came as Colorado as a whole added 300 nonfarm payroll jobs in the month, marking three full years of uninterrupted gains. The state’s unemployment rate dipped from 4.7 percent in September to 4.3 percent in October, its lowest since March of 2008 and down from 6.5 percent for the same month last year.

Nationally, the unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent in October, down from 7.2 percent last year.