The state’s employment scene continued to offer bits of positive news with bits of bad news this week.
According to the Colorado Department of Labor, the state added 7,600 jobs from June to July. Despite the added jobs, the state’s unemployment rate jumped a tenth of a percentage point to 7.1 percent, still below the national rate of 7.4 percent.
And while the average work week for Colorado workers has dipped since the start of the year from 36 hours to 35 hours, average wages are up from $25 to $26.
Alexandra Hall, chief economist with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, said the uptick in the state’s unemployment rate was fairly insignificant. The uptick marked the second consecutive month with a slight increase in the state’s unemployment rate, but Hall said the numbers are not significant enough to be considered a trend.
“It’s a little early to say that we have a trend in rising unemployment rates right now,” she said.
The numbers would need to continue to rise at this rate for another four to six months before they could be considered significant, she said.
Nationwide, the jobs numbers in recent weeks have been generally positive. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell 19,000 early this month to a seasonally adjusted 326,000, the fewest since January 2008. The decline shows the job market continues to strengthen.
Other data shows that across virtually all demographic groups, unemployment was down in July 2013 compared to July 2012.
Recent data shows that some of the trends on the jobs front, particularly for black Americans, could be improving.
According to the most-recent data from Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market appeared to get a little better in July for black Americans, among the hardest hit by high unemployment since the recession ended.
The unemployment rate for black workers declined last month by more than a full percentage point — dropping from 13.7 percent in June to 12.6 percent. That’s the lowest for that group since December 2008. And the rate fell because more people found jobs not for other reasons.
For black men 20 and older, unemployment dropped to 12.5 percent from 13 percent in June. Black adult women saw an even larger decline, to 10.5 percent from 12 percent in June.
Unemployment for black Americans is still among the highest for any single demographic group. And it is nearly double the rate of white workers, which stayed at 6.6 percent last month.
The rate for black workers is an important figure in Aurora, where about 13 percent of the population is black — a figure above the state average. According to the 2010 Census, about one in four black Colorado residents live in Aurora.
Local data showing Aurora’s unemployment rate broken down by demographic group aren’t available, but recent statewide trends have shown black workers in Colorado have seen struggles similar to the national data, with black workers seeing an unemployment rate a full percentage point higher than white workers in recent years.
Earlier this year, the Colorado Center on Law and Policy released a report showing that in 2012, black workers and Hispanic workers in Colorado were more likely last year to be unemployed or underemployed than white workers. According to the report, Hispanic workers saw an underemployment rate of about 20 percent last year, compared to a rate of under 15 percent for white workers.
“Regardless of the economic climate, blacks and Hispanics tend to experience substantially higher rates of unemployment relative to their white counterparts,” the report said.
The group is nonpartisan but tends to support left-leaning causes.
Terry Scanlon, a spokesman for the organization, said the data show a gap in opportunity between white workers and black workers.
“We highlight the data in our report because it’s clear that opportunity is not equal for all, it’s clear that African Americans don’t have the same opportunities that whites do,” he said.
The organization has lobbied the state Legislature to take two steps that it says could close the gap. One is creating more options for affordable child care, Scanlon said, because right now, it can be a barrier to impoverished families finding work.
“It’s pricey and for good reason, but it’s really difficult for people with low-wage jobs to afford the cost of child care when they are at work,” he said.
The group has also pushed the state to offer more education and training options for adults.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.