Colorado: Demographics Catching Up on State Working Population

Elizabeth Garner, Colorado's state demographer, is quoting saying that Colorado has been living in a dream that is soon going to end, and that the state is about to lose the "demographic dividend" it has had for several years--a relatively young population that has provided a healthy, productive workforce. According to an article by Emery Cowan in the Durango Herald, spoke at a conference of the Economic Development Council of Colorado.

"Now we’re going to shift out of that," she said, and the state needs to adapt. "We need to be strategic, we need to be making some really good choices because we don’t have that dividend anymore. We’re done with that comparative advantage we’ve had for 30 years."

Among other things, by 2030, the state’s population of people age 65 and older will be 150% larger than 2010, and about 1 million workers will be aging out of the labor force.

To see Colorado's labor force participation by age and gender and other parameters, go to State Demography .Office

Source: Durango Herald "Aging population in Colorado to change the face of workforce" (April 21, 2011)

Colorado: Census Bureau Issues Profiles of the Older Worker

In a continuation of its partnership with 31 states on a series of reports on workers 55 and older, the Census Bureau has released its report on Colorado, the eighth state to be released in the series.Among the highlights of the report--"The Geographic Distribution and Characteristics of Older Workers in Colorado: 2004":

• 13.2% of workers were 55 and older, while 2.9% were 65 and older;
• the utilities industry had the highest proportion of workers 55 and over (19.9%), and no individual industry employed more than 20% of workers who were over 55; and
• the state's retail trade industry employed the greatest number of older workers, with about 13.9% of the workers 55 and older being in that sector.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics What's New (April 1, 2008)

Additional Source: Rocky Mountain News "Work force in Colorado graying around the edges" (April 8, 2008)

Colorado Universities, Consulting Firm Try Solving Aging Workforce Crisis in Utilities Industry

Concerned about future professional staff shortages at Colorado's utilities as their aging workforces near retirement age, E3 Consulting is bringing together faculty from the University of Colorado and Colorado State University to develop new curriculum for energy-sector career tracks at the two institutions. According to Donald J. Hurd, President and CEO of E3 Consulting, although most business, professional and industrial sectors are facing employee shortages in the future, the pending shortage is aggravated in the utility industry because it has not been able to speak with one voice or take specific action to benefit its members in ways similar to medicine, law, journalism and other more consolidated professions. "We must begin to act now to develop the next generation of talented energy-sector executives, technicians and managers to run Colorado's power-producing facilities an distribution systems in decades ahead. The solution lies in the classroom."

Source: BusinessWire News Release (February 28, 2005)

Census Bureau Issues Study of Older Workers in Colorado

The U.S. Census Bureau has issued a report--A Profile of Older Workers in Colorado (PDF)--finding that, in 2002, about 33 percent of working Coloradans were age 45 or older, an increase from 24 percent in 1994. The share of the Centennial State's workers who were age 65 or older increased slightly over the period, from about 1.9 percent to 2.7 percent. The analysis of Colorado's older work force is the result of a new program called Local Employment Dynamics (LED) that was created in a partnership between the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment and the Census Bureau.

Source: News Release US Newswire (February 16, 2005)