COLORADO POLITICS — The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment came out Friday with its latest monthly jobs report for the state, covering September. Here are the key takeaways for the state’s workers:
Unemployment rate: 3.1 percent, up from 2.9 percent the previous month and up from 3.0 percent a year earlier. About 4,000 more people were unemployed than the month before.
Employment: Up 1,300 from the previous month, to 3,001,500 (including farm workers and the self employed).
Payroll jobs: Up 5,100 from the previous month, to 2,748,100 (NOT including farm workers or the self employed).
Private-sector payroll jobs: Up 4,400 from the previous month.
Government payroll jobs: Up 700 from the previous month.
Labor force participation: Up 5,300 from the previous month, to 3,096,000.
Average workweek for payroll jobs: 34.3 hours, up from 33.5 hours a year earlier.
Average hourly pay for payroll jobs: $29.40, up from $27.77 a year earlier.
The national unemployment rate for the month: 3.7 percent (the lowest U.S. rate since 1969), down from 3.9 percent the previous month and down from 4.2 percent a year earlier.
Explainer: These numbers come from two different government job surveys that don’t always agree: a survey of employers (payroll jobs only) that doesn’t include self-employed people and farm workers, and a survey of households (payroll and non-payroll employment, unemployment, labor force participation) that does include those categories. In the latter survey, people with multiple jobs are counted only once.
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