Colorado has seen substantial growth in its new business registry according to the University of Colorado Boulder’s Quarterly Business and Economic Indicators Report.
The 117,648 new businesses that were registered in 2017 exceeded the 109,526 businesses filed in 2016. As of November 2017, Colorado’s unemployment rate is the fifth lowest in the United States and employment grew by 1.7 percent and is the 13th best in the country.
According to the report, the business license filings over the final three months of 2017 were 10 percent higher than the final quarter of 2016. The report uses information provided by the secretary of state’s office and weighs inflation, labor markets, found gross domestic product, employment, wages, among other things.
The report not only looks at new business filings but also business renewals, construction, and the unemployment rate.
“Year-over-year increases in new entity filings and existing entity renewals have me very optimistic that Colorado’s steady economic growth will continue in 2018,” Secretary of State Wayne Williams said in a news release quoted by the Denver Post. “I expect 2018 to be a good year for Colorado businesses and consumers.”
Although the 2017 business growth results were higher than expected, the quarterly reports expect job additions to slow in 2018. Like the rest of the country, Colorado business owners’ optimism is currently at a high. The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index showed similar results about high small business optimism.
“Colorado exhibited stronger wage growth through the first half of 2017,” said Richard Wobbekind, executive director of the business research division as quoted by Patch. “This is something we expect in tight labor markets—and Colorado is certainly in a tight labor market with a sub-three-percent unemployment rate.”
