Colorado employers shaved 4,000 payroll jobs in December, and retail hiring over the holidays ran at a fraction of its pace in recent years, according to the latest employment report Tuesday from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
But the number of employed people in the state, which includes the self-employed, rose by 11,200, which caused the unemployment rate to drop from 3.2 percent to 3 percent last month.
“The reduction in the seasonally adjusted state unemployment rate to 3.0 percent was surprising in the sense that in came at the same time as a decline of 4,000 jobs,” said Broomfield economist Gary Horvath.
The job counts come from a survey of employers, while the labor force numbers, including the unemployment rate, come from a household survey with a smaller sample.
Revisions this year have often brought the disparate numbers more in line. For example, the November employment report showed a loss of 12,500 nonfarm payroll jobs in Colorado, but Tuesday’s report revised that decline to a much smaller 1,300 jobs.
More changes are expected in March, when the numbers will updated.
Nationally, the unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percentage point to 4.7 percent, but in Colorado it moved the other way, providing the state one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.
The number of people actively participating in the labor force in Colorado rose by 5,200 last month and the size of the state’s labor force stood at 2,926,100, of which 2,838,500 were employed.
Ryan Gedney, a state labor economist, said enough people joined the labor force last year to push the participation rate of working age adults to nearly 67 percent, up from 66 percent in December 2015.
The report showed a slight uptick in the average hours worked during a week from 33.2 hours to 33.3 hours, but a decrease in average hourly earnings from $27.03 an hour to $26.92 an hour.
Initial estimates show the state economy adding 48,800 jobs on a seasonally-adjusted basis last year, which translates into a growth rate of 1.9 percent. That is much slower than the 72,200 jobs and 2.9 percent growth rate measured last year.
The two sectors showing the largest job gains in December over November were professional and business services and trade, transportation and utilities, while the largest declines came in leisure and hospitality and education and health services.
The trade sector includes retail, which ramped up hiring for the holidays, but not at the same level as in past year. Retailers added 600 positions on a seasonally adjusted basis between October and December last year versus the 2,000 they added over the same two months in 2015 and 1,600 in 2014.
The biggest job gains across the year came in professional and business services, education and health services, and construction. Job losses were recorded in mining, which includes oil and gas; manufacturing, and financial activities.
The payroll count comes from reports that employers provide in connection with unemployment insurance, while the unemployment rate and labor force numbers come from a separate household survey that involves a much smaller sample. One reason the unemployment rate can drop at the same time the number of payroll jobs is falling is that the number of self-employed workers has increased. Adjustments in the next couple of months could also bring the two surveys more in line with each other.