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State and Metro Area Employment, Hours, & Earnings
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Notice Regarding Publication of Colorado Employment and Unemployment Data
On November 20, 2024, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) suspended publication of industry and substate data for Colorado due to data quality concerns. These data quality concerns were due to ongoing issues with the modernization of the state’s unemployment insurance (UI) system. Because the QCEW microdata are fundamentally a byproduct of state UI systems, QCEW data quality is sensitive to changes in these systems.
The quality concerns with Colorado data have been sufficiently addressed to resume QCEW publication. Therefore, on February 19, 2025, QCEW will resume publication of substate and industry employment and wage data for Colorado with the issuance of the County Employment and Wages news release for third quarter 2024.
QCEW data serve as critical inputs into subnational estimates produced by the Current Employment Statistics (CES) and Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) programs. CES uses the QCEW data—which provide comprehensive counts of nonfarm payroll employment—as the primary source for its annual benchmarking of employment estimates. The LAUS program, in turn, uses both CES and QCEW data to produce subnational estimates of employed people, which are critical for calculating civilian labor force levels and unemployment rates. Because of the data quality concerns, both CES and LAUS had announced on December 18, 2024, that they would suspend publication of data for Colorado and its local areas beginning with January 2025 estimates.
However, because the quality of the QCEW data has been sufficiently addressed, CES and LAUS will be able to complete the 2024 benchmark and revision processes and will be able to continue producing estimates for 2025. Thus, the State Employment and Unemployment news release for January 2025, scheduled for March 17, 2025, and the Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment news release for January 2025, scheduled for March 21, 2025, will include data for Colorado and its local areas.
Last Modified Date: February 20, 2025