Colorado’s unemployment rate fell to 4.8% in December — the first time it’s dropped below 5% since March 2020, when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic shell-shocked economies worldwide, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment reported Friday.

It was the sixth consecutive month that Colorado’s jobless rate had fallen from the previous month, said Ryan Gedney, the Labor and Employment Department’s senior economist. November’s rate was 5.1%. 

December’s rate also was down 2 percentage points from 6.9% in December 2020.

Despite the latest decline, Colorado’s jobless rate remained above the national figure of 3.9% and still is nearly double the 2.5% rate the state reached in late 2019 before the pandemic took hold.

The Labor and Employment Department credited December’s unemployment rate decline to an 18,000-person gain in the number of individuals who were working, along with an increase in the labor force of 8,500.

Also, Colorado employers added 9,000 nonfarm payroll jobs from November to December, pushing the state total to 2.8 million jobs.

Of the increase in December jobs, private sector industries added 7,900 jobs and government added 1,100. Private sector industries with significant job gains included professional and business services, which includes defense contractors and technology businesses; financial services; and manufacturing.

In March 2020, Colorado’s jobless rate was 4.7%, but skyrocketed to a record 12.1% the next month.

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As the pandemic took hold, a statewide stay-at-home order designed to slow the spread of the coronavirus led to the closing of restaurant dining rooms, bars, gyms, theaters, hair salons and other businesses. Job losses followed.

Since then, the state’s unemployment rate has drifted downward over the last 20 months — dropping at a “substantially faster” pace than after a recession in the early 2000s and the Great Recession later that decade, Gedney said.

It took 30 months to reach a jobless rate of 4.8% in Colorado after the start of the recession in the early 2000s, and 45 months to reach that level after the onset of the Great Recession, he said.

Colorado, meanwhile, has regained 335,500 of the 375,800 nonfarm payroll jobs that were lost from February through April 2020. That equates to a job recovery rate of 89.3%, higher than the national rate of 84%, according to the Labor and Employment Department report.

Locally, the Colorado Springs unemployment rate dipped to 4.3% in December from 4.6% in November. Unlike the state figure, the Colorado Springs jobless rate and those of six other metro areas in the state report aren’t seasonally adjusted.

Among metro areas in the report, Denver’s jobless rate fell to 4.2% in December from 4.5% in November. Boulder declined to 3.2% from 3.5% and its rate remained lowest among the metro areas. Pueblo dipped to 6.4% from 6.6%, though it still has the highest metro-area rate.

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Colorado Springs also has recovered the jobs it lost since the start of the pandemic, a milestone it reached in October; its 113% jobs recovery rate is highest among the seven metro areas in the Labor and Employment Department report.

Denver is next with a recovery rate of 93%. It’s followed by Grand Junction, 90%; Fort Collins, 82%; Boulder, 79%; Pueblo, 77%; and Greeley, 63%.

Colorado Springs has consistently shown a stronger job recovery pattern, possibly since mid-2021, Gedney said.

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He couldn’t necessarily point to anything specific that the Springs has done that puts it ahead of other metro areas when it comes to the recovery of jobs.

Gedney did say, however, that the trade, transportation and utilities sector has been a “good driver” for jobs in Colorado Springs, along with leisure and hospitality.

While the state’s unemployment rate has fallen, Gedney said it’s uncertain what effect the omicron variant might have had on the state’s job market in January; employment data for this month won’t be released until March.

The payroll data in the state report comes from a survey of employers, while the employment rate is compiled from a survey of households.