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Tuesday, November 22, 2011

2010 Population and Economic Estimates and Forecasts Now Online!

The State Demography Office is pleased to announce it has finished producing and updating its vintage 2010 population and economic estimates and forecasts.  The office has updated and re-released population and housing unit inter-censal estimates for July 2000-2010 benched Census 2000 and 2010 counts.  County population by single year of age and sex have also been revised for the years 2000 to 2010. 

The office has also re-benched and updated its population forecasts by age.  The updated forecasts show Colorado's population  growing by 1.6% per year over the next five years, increasing to 1.8% per year before the end of the decade to grow to close to 6 million persons by the year 2020.  This year's revised forecast is based on the 2010 Census and incorporates updates to age and sex by county and by race and ethnicity statewide. 

The economic base analysis and job estimates for 2010 have also been updated and released by the State Demography Office. Overall, Colorado saw a slight dip in total jobs, losing 45,411 (-1.6 percent) jobs between 2009 and 2010. The largest contraction occurred in the Denver Metro Area, with Denver, Jefferson, and Arapahoe Counties accounting for nearly half (20,128) of jobs lost statewide. Twenty-one out of our 64 counties did experience some job growth. Gilpin, Yuma, and Morgan added the most jobs, 1,279 combined, with Yuma and Morgan also being the fastest growing counties with a 5.6 and 5.3 percent increase, respectively. The office also updated its job forecasts by county through 2040. Total jobs for the state are forecast to increase slowly for 2011 (.9%) followed by 1% in 2012.  Slightly faster job growth is forecast for 2013 of 1.8% or approximately 50,000 jobs.  Job growth in 2014 and 2015 is forecast at 2.4% and 2.2% respectively, or around 65,000 jobs. Data and information can be found on the State Demography Office website at: www.colorado.gov/demography.