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Colorado was tied for nation’s 4th highest rate of job quitters in September

Tamara Chuang
The Colorado Sun
Visitors to Crested Butte, Colorado patronize restaurants and businesses along Elk Avenue with "Help Wanted" signs posted in the windows and doors on June 19, 2021. Many businesses have been forced to reduce hours and services because there are not enough employees; some businesses have even been forced to close. Visitors have been asked to have patience while the town grapples with the problem. (Dean Krakel, Special to The Colorado Sun)

A lot of things changed in Colorado’s labor market in September. Pandemic unemployment ended, which cut off benefits for 107,000 unemployed workers. Some of the first vaccine mandates took effect. And Colorado went from the state with the nation’s highest rate of layoffs and job separations to the 18th highest.

The drop in September was dramatic and led to Colorado leading the nation for some of the largest changes in the new Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which tracks how many people get hired, fired or quit in a given month.

Colorado had the nation’s biggest decline in layoffs and involuntary job discharges (down 42,000 jobs), the fourth highest rate of quitters (tied with Alaska) and the third largest decline in job openings, according to analysis by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.



Colorado has been all over the place compared to other states. Here are some key indicators and where Colorado ranked in September versus August: 18th for layoffs and discharges in September vs. 1st in August; 4th for people who quit their jobs vs. 9th in August; 41th in job openings vs. 14th in August; 26th for rate of hiring vs. 17th in August.

“When there’s rankings where in one month it’s first and the next, it’s 50th, it’s tough to take too much from that,” Ryan Gedney, senior economist at the state Department of Labor and Employment, said. “I would say there’s more underlying volatility in the trends than (other) surveys.”



For more on this story, go to coloradosun.com.

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