Many workers in Colorado and Utah are coming in from out of state and outside the labor force, helping the two states add jobs the fastest, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The national unemployment rate was at 4.4 percent overall in 2017, yet the average unemployment rate in Colorado was 2.8 percent, and 3.2 percent in Utah. The number of unemployed individuals in Colorado dropped by 9,000 in 2017, and in Utah, there were 1,000 fewer unemployed. The Wall Street Journal says that the job growth in these two states is not adhering to the national trend, as "U.S. employment gains have cooled each year since 2014. That matched economists’ expectations that hiring would ease when the labor market tightened."
Those states stand in contrast to places like Florida, with an average unemployment rate last year of 4.2 percent. That state is at least partially fueling strong job growth by getting existing residents back to work. The state added 308,000 jobs last year, a 3.3 percent increase, and cut unemployment ranks by 54,000. States with higher unemployment rates were even more reliant on the unemployed to fill jobs.
