Local unemployment rates inched upward in March
The unemployment rates for local counties in March ticked slightly upward for the second month in a row even as the state of Colorado as a whole notched a 15-year low for joblessness.
Colorado’s unemployment rate for the month hit 2.9 percent, down from 3 percent in February. The level marked the state’s lowest since 2.8 percent unemployment in February 2001.
The state added 5,500 nonfarm payroll jobs, meanwhile, bringing its total to 2,594,300 according to a survey of business establishments.
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Boulder, Larimer, Weld and Broomfield counties — which have all hit 14 and 15-year lows in recent months themselves — all saw their rates increase by two-tenths of a percentage point.
With the mining and logging sector — which includes the oil and gas industry — losing jobs from February to March, Weld’s unemployment climbed to 3.7 percent. But it was still six-tenths of a percentage point lower than a year earlier. The county had 143,939 people employed and 5,496 looking for work in March, compared to 144,187 employed and 5,169 seeking jobs in February.
Unemployment in Boulder, Broomfield and Larimer counties hovered around 3 percent.
Boulder County’s came in at 2.9 percent, with 173,661 people employed and 5,103 seeking jobs. Broomfield’s rate was 3 percent, with 34,136 employed and 1,066 looking for work. Larimer’s figures, meanwhile, were 3.1, 178,052 and 5,637, respectively.
Nationally, March unemployment dipped one-tenth of a percentage point to 5 percent, half a percentage point better than last year. Colorado’s rate was down 1.1 percentage points year-over-year.
