{"id":20906,"date":"2020-01-10T09:05:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T16:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/news\/robust-growth-may-slow-but-contraction-isnt-in-the-picture\/"},"modified":"2020-01-10T09:05:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T16:05:00","slug":"brower-robust-growth-may-slow-but-contraction-isnt-in-the-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/brower-robust-growth-may-slow-but-contraction-isnt-in-the-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"Brower: Robust growth may slow, but contraction isn\u2019t in the picture"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A help wanted sign sits in the window of the El Pacifico X-Press in Fraser in this newspaper file photo. Many new jobs in Grand County aren\u2019t getting filled because employers can\u2019t fill them.<\/strong>
Sky-Hi News file photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Colorado\u2019s economy slowed in 2019 and is likely to continue to slow in 2020. Job gains in Colorado in 2020 will drop to levels not seen since 2011.<\/p>\n

I know all that sounds like bad economic news for Grand County and Colorado, but it isn\u2019t. The latest Colorado Business Economic Outlook from the University of Colorado in Boulder, released in December, contained those seemingly negative news blurbs.<\/p>\n

But it also concluded this: A contraction of the economy in Colorado isn\u2019t in the forecast.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I wonder how much relevance a macro-economic look at the overall Colorado economy really affects Grand County. After all, we don\u2019t have the strong urban economies that dominate the Front Range and we don\u2019t have the strong agricultural influence that farming has on the Eastern Plains.<\/p>\n

So a big chunk of the big picture simply doesn\u2019t apply here.<\/p>\n

But our tourism economy, which is increasingly driving economic growth here, depends directly upon the good fortune and growth in the economy along Colorado\u2019s Front Range. Those city people, after all, are the ones who vacation in Grand County.<\/p>\n

So, yes, the big picture of Colorado\u2019s economy has a real bearing on us here in Grand County. Even to the point where the seeming \u201cdown\u201d news has positive implications.<\/p>\n

Take, for instance, the position of the report that Colorado\u2019s economy slowed in 2019 and is likely to continue to slow down in 2020. Hmmm. Based on retail sales collections in the county and Grand County towns, there wasn\u2019t much of a slowdown in spending here in 2019. So if that\u2019s a contraction, then, wow, what does growth look like? We\u2019ve been seeing growth above 10% in those collections now for two and even three years. If there is a \u201ccontraction,\u201d then it won\u2019t have a huge impact here in my opinion.<\/p>\n

The truth is, we can barely handle the growth we\u2019ve got, which relates directly to the counter-intuitive good news of the study\u2019s conclusion that job growth (Note: This is the rate of job growth, not overall jobs) will slow to a 2011 level. The truth is that most employers here can\u2019t handle any more job growth. The new jobs being created, largely in tourism and construction services sectors, aren\u2019t getting filled because employers can\u2019t fill them.<\/p>\n

So will the market give us a break from this highly volatile job growth? It sounds like the answer is \u201cyes\u201d and that\u2019s good news. We need to catch up with ourselves. It\u2019s that simple. As Richard Wobbekind, the author of the study, stated in a Denver Post interview: \u201cYou can\u2019t accommodate faster job growth. Everybody is working, incomes are going up.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is especially true in Grand County, where high housing costs and a seasonal, tourism-based economy adds insult to injury for workers.<\/p>\n

Overall, he concludes that \u201cwe avoid a recession.\u201d This is mainly because interest rates at the federal level are low enough to keep businesses borrowing money and because the national economy will continue to grow, although not as robustly as in 2019.<\/p>\n

The report mentions the troubling demographic trends for the long term, in which Colorado deaths out-pace births and where all the influx of newcomers is targeted for the Front Range.<\/p>\n

Of course, all of these prognostications could go flying out the window with one or two unexpected and dramatic events. As I\u2019ve pointed out in the past, this same study from CU back in 2007 failed to note the upcoming Great Recession, easily the greatest economic downturn in most of our lifetimes.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s hope the study\u2019s measured predictions for 2020 hold true. Happy New Year!<\/p>\n

Patrick Brower is the Enterprise Facilitator for the Grand Enterprise Initiative. He provides free and confidential business management coaching for anyone who wants to start or expand a business in Grand County. He can be reached at 970-531-0632 or at patrickbrower@kapoks.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A help wanted sign sits in the window of the El Pacifico X-Press in Fraser in this newspaper file photo. Many new jobs in Grand County aren\u2019t getting filled because employers can\u2019t fill them.Sky-Hi News file photo Colorado\u2019s economy slowed in 2019 and is likely to continue to slow in 2020. Job gains in Colorado […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20906","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 08:22:10","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}