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FOURTH QUARTER 1996 IN REVIEW
ALL INDUSTRIES

Employment change from last quarter+ 0.7
Employment change from year ago+ 3.3
Wage change from year ago+ 9.7

QUARTERLY

Fourth quarter employment rose 0.7% to 1,906,576 having added 12,323 employees over last quarter. Industry activity was mixed. The end of the growing and harvest season, cooler temperatures, the return to school, start up of the skiing season and Christmas shopping impacted employment fluctuations in the various industries. Agriculture, Mining and Construction which are effected by weather experienced employment losses over the quarter. Government, which rose due to school starts, added the largest number of employees up 12,548. The second largest gain occurred in Retail employment up by 3062 and was effected by staffing for the Christmas season and the opening of the Park Meadows Mall in Douglas county.


ANNUAL

Annually, Colorado added 60,975 employees over fourth quarter a year ago for a gain of 3.3%. While the addition of better than 60,000 employees to the work world is indicative of a viable economy increases have slowed and reflect levels encountered in 1992. In terms of percent Construction reported the largest gain up 8.9% over a year ago. By employees Services registered the largest gain supplying almost half of the States’s growth adding 29,300 employees. Retail, up 7689 employees, had been a leading industry but recently slowed with increases mirroring early 1992. Annually, only two industries lost employment. Mining suffered continued losses dropping 1149 employees. Federal cutbacks and discounting of work study students in State government caused Government employment losses of 566.

 % EMPLOYMENT CHANGE
 QUARTERLYANNUAL
AGRICULTURE-23.2+ 3.2
MINING- 1.7- 7.9
CONSTRUCTION- 2.5+ 8.9
MANUFACTURING+ 0.1+ 2.1
TCPU+ 0.7+ 2.0
WHOLESALE+ 1.2+ 3.4
RETAIL+ 0.8+ 2.1
FIRE+ 1.1+ 5.3
SERVICES+ 0.3+ 5.7
GOVERNMENT+ 4.4- 0.2


Colorado Employment and Wages (ES202) Fourth Quarter 1996