CU economist Wobbekind: Colorado to lose up to 65,000 jobs in 2009 - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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“We think the Coloradio economy will likely parallel or slightly follow the recovery of thenational economy, which we see leveling off in the thired quarter and growing in the fourth Wobbekind said in a statement. “We think the rate of job lossess will slow throughout the rest of this and potentially turn positive by the end of the Wobbekind made his remarks as part of a midyeat update on his 2009economic outlook, originally forecastg in December 2008. Colorado likely will lose 55,000p to 65,000 jobs in 2009, Wobbekind said in his updatefd forecast. That’s far more than the 4,300-job loss he expecte d last December.
“In the first part of this we’ve more than lost the jobs created in the previous two he said. “It’s going to take at leastg the next two years to recover thosdlost jobs.” Hiring in the educational and healtbh care services sector has been slightly positivw in 2009, mostly because employers were stilp filling a backlog of neededr hires in areas such as Wobbekind said. The natural resources and mining sectodris flat, but could potentially see some positivee job growth if energy exploration in the statr increases, he said.
“There are some jobs bein created, but pretty much across the boardc the sectors are taking a veryhard hit,” he Among the most affected sectoras has been the professional and business services which includes many high-paying jobs such as lawyers, computer systems designers and scientifixc research and development groups. “The singld most surprising area and the one that has had the largesft job loss has been in professionap andbusiness services,” Wobbekind said.
“It’z been a very important categoru for jobs during the last several years as the econom has surgedand it’s been one that has been hit surprisinglyg hard in this downturn, at leastr by our assessment and by many others.” The leisure and hospitalityu sector saw very weak retail numbers for the first four months of the year, especially in mountain resort The rest of the year is expected to be weak, but shoulrd improve compared with the firsgt four months of the year, the statement said.
“This is not going to be a great year for tourisk byany means, but it probably will get a little bettedr going forward than it was in the beginningg of this year,” he The Leeds Business Confidence Index did show an uptickj recently, suggesting improvement in the thirrd quarter. After plunging to a record low in the firs quarterof 2009, the forward-looking LBCI surged upward, from 35.5 to 47.5 for the thircd quarter of 2009. All six index componentsx postedsteep gains, and two of the for the state economy and sales, passed the neutralo mark of 50.
However, overall, the LBCI remaind below 50 as leaders expressed continued concernssabout profits, hiring and capital