Secretary of State report: Biz indicators mostly healthy despite slowing job growth

BOULDER — Despite naggingly slow employment growth, Colorado’s economy continues to chug along on solid ground, data from the Colorado Secretary of State’s office and University of Colorado economists shows.

New business entity filings were up 0.6% year-over-year in the third quarter of 2023, while the number of business entity renewals rose 7.3% compared with the same period last year, according to Colorado’s Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators report, released Tuesday by Secretary of State Jena Griswold and CU’s Leeds Business Research Division.

“New business filings are linked to employment growth over the long haul,” said Rich Wobbekind, associate dean for business and government relations at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business, a welcome sign for the overall health of the state’s economy. 

Dissolutions of business entities declined 1% year-over-year in the most recent quarter. 

Still, “job growth has been slowing” in Colorado, Wobbekind said. The job-growth rate was 1.4% in September, good for 39th nationally. 

Wobbekind speculated that slower employment growth is a supply-side issue, as new job openings have outpaced the workforces capacity for filling them. 

In the third quarter, Colorado recorded “the 11th-highest job openings rate, the fourth-highest labor force participation rate, the 19th-fastest growth in labor force and the highest number of people in the labor force in state history,” according to the indicators report. 

“Colorado is a strong position to meet whatever challenges lie ahead,” Griswold said. 

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