Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming had an overall track record of weathering recessions better than the country — until the 2007-09 recession, according to an analysis by the Denver branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
During nine recessions since 1957, the three states tended to enter recessions later than the rest of the country, had smaller decreases in employment and rebounded sooner, according to the study.
One deviation to the pattern occurred during the 2001 recession, when the dot-com bubble burst, causing Colorado to temporarily have a higher unemployment rate than the nation.
In the last recession, the states did get hit later, but had a drop in employment similar to the national 6 percent decline.
“Every industry in the private sector in these states experienced job losses except private education and health services,”
Alison Felix, assistant vice president, wrote in the analysis.
Felix said that of the three states, Colorado is now doing best, followed by Wyoming and then New Mexico.
In each year of the recovery, employment gains in Colorado have outpaced national gains — led by jobs in energy, business services, health care, leisure and hospitality, and state government.
With a stronger recovery, employment in Colorado has now surpassed its previous peak, the report said.
While agreeing with the analysis, Richard Wobbekind, an economist at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business, said the recovery has had its drawbacks.
“It has been tougher in terms of regaining the quality of jobs and, therefore, income levels,” Wobbekind said in an interview.
The analysis also noted that “employment remains below peak levels in many industries.”
Construction employment, for example, is 25 percent below peak levels in Colorado, said the report.
Wyoming also started to see increases in employment in early 2010, and during the first two years of the recovery, employment gains in Wyoming outpaced national gains, driven by sharp increases in the energy sector. The energy sector in Wyoming has slowed, and employment levels fell slightly in 2012 and early 2013, the report said.
The most severely affected of the three states is New Mexico, according to the Federal Reserve.
“The New Mexico economy has struggled to recover from the recent recession, and has lagged the nation in employment gains over the past four years,” said the report.
