Two news items came out today. One was news about a slight job growth of 0.1% in Larimer County through the third quarter of 2008. The second had to do with Wolf Robotics laying off around 30 employees.
I’m not sure what kind of news job growth in the third quarter of 2008 is, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the current state of affairs. More and more we are seeing headlines about layoffs. However, the media likes shocking headlines – and they are easy to find these days.
Northern Colorado is definitely feeling the effects of the current economic climate. However, with industries like healthcare, renewable energy, and education, we do have a solid foundation. I believe we will start to see a balancing of high pay jobs with lower wage jobs coming to our area. We have strong companies that are rooted in our region and we have new companies coming to the area – who will all bring good jobs when the market recovers, or maybe earlier. The retail and service jobs that came in waves over the last 3 years will start to subside due to saturation.
You decide what you want to listen to, but for me I am optimistic we are positioned very well for a recovery. Although the near term will probably stay relatively flat – new job/company announcements combined with other job/company layoffs.