Denver Jobs Rank 37th in the Nation

A recent report found that even though tens of thousands of Denver jobs (Click here) have been lost during the last year, the city still fared better than most others throughout the country.

The report, from Portfolio.com, focused on the strength of the country's 100 largest labor markets. Denver ranked 37th in the nation, falling slightly from its ranking of 30th last year. The ranking was based on the rate of growth of private-sector jobs between 2004 and 2009 in proportion to the total job market.

Portfolio.com found that the Denver area gained 25,000 private-sector jobs during that time period, an increase of 2.5 percent, but lost 55,400 jobs from 2008 to 2009, a decrease of 5.1 percent. Colorado Springs was ranked 58th, up from 64th last year. That city saw a 1.2 percent private-sector job growth rate between 2004 and 2009, but a 4.7 percent decline from 2008 to 2009.

Austin, Texas, was ranked first, with 16.6 percent job growth between 2004 and 2009 and only a 1.2 percent job loss from 2008 to 2009. Following Austin are San Antonio; Baton Rouge, La.; Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. Detroit was ranked last with an 11.2 percent job decline between 2004 and 2009 and a 10 percent decrease during the last year.

"The U.S. economy has unraveled at a breathtaking pace since the middle of last year," the report notes. "Nearly 6 million private-sector jobs have vanished since June 2008, equaling a loss of 485,000 jobs per month. The national unemployment rate has skyrocketed nearly four points over the same span - from 5.6 percent at last year’s midpoint to 9.5 percent this year. And there’s no immediate relief in store."

During August, the Denver-Aurora-Broomfield area saw its unemployment rate decrease from 8 percent to 7.4 percent, which was lower than the national unemployment rate at the time of 9.7 percent. The area's unemployment rate has stayed relatively steady compared to much of the rest of the country.

Denver had a total non-farm employment of 1,206,800 workers during August, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 1,208,900 workers during July and a 4.6 percent decrease from last year.