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Colorado loses businesses at one of nation’s highest rates, new report finds
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado loses businesses at one of nation’s highest rates, new report finds

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado residents have spent years watching prices climb while business groups warn that operating in the state is becoming harder. A new report adds another layer of data to those concerns. Colorado ranked near the bottom nationally for net business establishment growth in 2024 and recorded the nation’s worst employment losses tied to business openings and closures, according to a new analysis from the Common Sense Institute. While most states added businesses and jobs last year, Colorado was one of only six states to lose ground in both categories, joining Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington. Researchers pointed to high business costs and weakening confidence in Colorado’s economic outlook as growing warni...
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Colorado Economy Takes A Hit As Revised Data Shows 11,000 Jobs Lost Over The Last Year
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DENVER7, Approved, State

Colorado Economy Takes A Hit As Revised Data Shows 11,000 Jobs Lost Over The Last Year

By Shannon Ogden | Denver7 Colorado says the state's unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent in January, while the labor force participation rate dropped to its lowest level since 2020. DENVER — Colorado lost 11,000 nonfarm payroll jobs last year, according to a grim revised jobs report from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. Brian Lewandowski, executive director Business Research Division at the Leeds School of Business at CU Boulder, said it is unusual for Colorado to lose jobs outside of recessionary periods. Since 2000, Colorado has only recorded job losses in 2002 and 2003 during the tech burst, 2009 and 2010 during the financial crisis, and in 2020 because of COVID, Lewandowski said. The revised data shows the state lost jobs inst...
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USDA move to Fort Collins could add 6,000 jobs and $1B in output, study finds
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

USDA move to Fort Collins could add 6,000 jobs and $1B in output, study finds

By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s planned relocation of up to 2,600 employees to Fort Collins could bring more than $1 billion in new business output and over 6,000 new jobs to the area by the end of next year, according to a study by the think tank Common Sense Institute. In July, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that the department would be relocating up to 2,600 personnel and operations to five new hubs, including Fort Collins. According to CSI study authors Dr. Caitlin McKennie and Cooper Pollard, the move is expected to “stimulate job creation, bolster local businesses, and enhance collaboration with Colorado State University,” which ranks 23rd in the nation for agricultural sciences. Agriculture plays a “vital role...
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Hundreds lose jobs after global pharmaceutical company closes two Colorado facilities
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Fox31, Approved, State

Hundreds lose jobs after global pharmaceutical company closes two Colorado facilities

By Heather Willard | FOX31 Denver DENVER (KDVR) — A global contract development and manufacturing organization with headquarters in Seattle has announced the closure of its Boulder and Longmont locations, resulting in hundreds of laid-off workers in Colorado. AGC Biologics filed a WARN Notice with the state of Colorado on Sept. 16 about the closure of its Boulder and Longmont facilities, as well as the impact on employees who support those facilities from afar. On its website, the company says that it provides pharmaceutical development and manufacturing services for protein-based biologics, cell and gene therapies and messenger RNA. It boasts eight locations across the world, including in Japan, Denmark, Italy and Germany, but will drop to six after the two Colorado loc...
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Has AI Begun Transforming Employment in the Colorado Legal Services Industry?
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Has AI Begun Transforming Employment in the Colorado Legal Services Industry?

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The two biggest ongoing threats to democracy in Colorado are the less-than-competent Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, and Colorado’s Supreme Court. You will recall that last year both blocked the inclusion of Donald Trump’s name on the November 2024 presidential ballot in Colorado only to have the nation’s Supreme Court definitively overrule both. I didn’t notice anyone getting into trouble or apologizing for those blatant attacks on democracy but it managed to get me thinking (no mean feat) about the legal profession in general and whether it was changing in Colorado in the face of artificial intelligence (AI). Admittedly, I’m personally not a big fan of AI because, just like history, it is crafted by the victors / the ...
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Safeway Shutters Multiple Colorado Locations Citing Poor Performance
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State, Approved, kdvr.com

Safeway Shutters Multiple Colorado Locations Citing Poor Performance

By Parker Gordon | KDVR FOX 31 DENVER (KDVR) — Safeway has just announced the closure of 10 stores within Colorado, including some Denver Metro area locations. On Tuesday, a Safeway spokesperson told FOX31 that the 10 stores are expected to cease operations before or on Nov. 7, which comes after a “strategic consolidation” through merging the Intermountain and Denver division into a Mountain West Division. “We continuously evaluate the performance of our stores, and occasionally, after long and careful deliberation, it becomes necessary to make the difficult decision to close certain locations. We are working to place affected associates in nearby stores wherever possible,” said the Safeway spokesperson. The spokesperson also listed the 10 Colorado locations, which are as foll...
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Show up and earn: First jobs, buying power and Colorado’s July numbers
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Approved, State, Top Stories

Show up and earn: First jobs, buying power and Colorado’s July numbers

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Labor Day isn’t just policy and parades. It’s first alarms, first shifts and the pride of a small raise. The numbers say buying power ticked up this year and Colorado stays competitive. The stories say the first rung is where grit takes shape. The first paycheck isn’t just money. It’s alarms, bus schedules and showing up when friends don’t. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Secretary of Labor, tells it plainly. “My parents insisted that I get a job… I wanted to be a cheerleader in high school and I couldn’t afford the uniform… I was working 12-hour days… I raised the money that I needed to buy that uniform.”  Doug Collins, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, remembers a mop and waxed aisles. “I went to a local grocery store called Big Star… I got to clean...
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What shrinking state and local payrolls could mean for your wallet
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Fox31, Approved, Local

What shrinking state and local payrolls could mean for your wallet

By: Raquel Villanueva | FOX31 Denver DENVER (KDVR) —The city of Denver completed its layoff process for 171 workers on Tuesday, after the city already cut 665 unfilled positions on Monday. The city says the efforts will save $100 million. But what do the layoffs mean for Denver’s economic future? A local economist gave FOX31 some insight. The city’s personnel cuts could certainly help its economic outlook, but an expert says this could just be the beginning of tough times. “If this trend continues, then it is not a very good situation. I think we will have a pretty severe impact of recession maybe by the end of this year or maybe even next year,” said Kishore Kulkarni, a distinguished professor of economics at MSU Denver. With Denver’s budget $200 million short for next...
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James: Metro elites power down rural Colorado energy while calling it a ‘just transition’
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ScottKJames.com, Approved, Commentary, State

James: Metro elites power down rural Colorado energy while calling it a ‘just transition’

By Scott K. James | Commentary, ScottKJames.com As Craig faces a coal plant shutdown, rural Colorado communities are being gutted in the name of environmental virtue-signaling. Jobs, power, and people are being discarded—and the so-called “just transition” is anything but. Rural Colorado towns like Craig are being sacrificed on the altar of metro-area environmental guilt—and no amount of “just transition” branding is going to save them. In a July 19, 2025, piece for The Denver Gazette, reporter Scott Weiser rather artfully dives into the coming shutdown of Tri-State’s Craig Station—one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the state—and the ripple effect it’s having on energy, jobs, and entire communities. It’s a wonderfully written story, but the outcome sucks. Mean...
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O’Donnell: Behind the headlines, Colorado’s job growth tells a different story
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Approved, Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

O’Donnell: Behind the headlines, Colorado’s job growth tells a different story

By Mike O’Donnell | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released April 2025 job creation numbers by state. The national numbers were released earlier in the month and for the nation as a whole 177,000 new jobs were created in April, and this was considered a “solid” number by those who consider themselves experts. Colorado’s share of that total was 8,400 and those same experts consider that an “exceptionally solid” month for Colorado. Somewhere, champagne corks were likely popped. Nonetheless, behind every number is a story and that story for Colorado is quite revealing.  Yes, Colorado added 8,400 new jobs in April – but 5,500 (65%) were in bars and restaurants, and 4,500 (54%) in health care and social assistance. ...
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