Business Buzz: Latest Colorado economic forecast and jobs report

On this week's edition of the 9NEWS Business Buzz, 9NEWS Business Expert Ryan Frazier cut through the spin with Dr. Phyllis Resnick, Lead Economist at the Colorado Futures Center, who joined the program to reveal the structural shifts hidden inside the latest state jobs report, and what her economic forecast says about the next six months.

According to the latest June jobs data from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE), Colorado added 4,800 jobs, beating both the 6-month and 12-month averages. At a 1.0% job growth rate, Colorado is actively outpacing the national average of 0.3%.

However, Dr. Resnick’s analysis paints a concerning picture of where those jobs are coming from. For the first six months of 2026, a staggering 86.8% of all jobs created statewide were in just one sector: Health Care and Social Assistance. Furthermore, in 12 of the last 18 months, if you removed healthcare from the equation, Colorado’s economy would have actually lost jobs. The state is leaning heavily on a "healthcare crutch."

The 6-Month Lookahead So, where are we heading? The latest, ColoradoCast—a forecasting tool that looks six months into our state's economic future—projects that overall economic activity will maintain a healthy growth rate in the high 3% to mid 4% range through the end of 2026.

How can our economy keep growing robustly while broad job creation is so slow? The answer lies in the stock market and technology. The ColoradoCast shows our state's growth is being heavily driven by national equity markets, not local hiring.