![]() ![]() The revenue fell by about $45 million from 2019 to 2021. Warden said oil and gas account for more than half of the county’s assessed value and generate a big part of the property tax revenue. The total was 4,649 in the first quarter of 2021 and 4,984 the first quarter of 2022.īesides jobs, the drops in oil and gas production and their prices also hit local governments in their budgets. There were nearly 8,000 mining jobs, mostly oil and gas jobs, in Weld County in the first quarter of 2020, according to the U.S. “But the numbers look bad because of the impact the energy industry had on our local economy.” Other parts of the economy, including the county’s large agricultural industry, have added jobs and grown, Warden said. The effects were felt across Weld County, where oil and gas workers were staying in hotels, eating in local restaurants and buying trucks and equipment. This one, they dropped off a cliff and then it slowly got better,” said Chris Wright, CEO of Energy Liberty, a Denver-based oilfield services company. The last downturn, things slowly got worse over 18 months. ![]() Click to enlargeĪ collapse in demand and a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia plunged oil prices plunging into negative territory in April 2020, sending shock waves through the industry and associated businesses. Roughly 80% of the jobs in the state’s mining and logging category are in oil and gas, said Ryan Gedney, senior economist at the state labor department. “They basically pretty much dropped to almost nothing there in the pandemic.”Ĭolorado Department of Labor and Employment statistics show 6,300 fewer mining and logging jobs than in February 2020, right before the pandemic hit. “Just prior to the pandemic, Weld County was really booming with oil and gas development,” said Don Warden, the county’s director of finance and administration. The bottom line is that Colorado has thousands fewer oil and gas jobs than it did before COVID-19 spread across the world and halted or greatly constrained activity. Factors range from global economic forces to the industry’s current business model to new state regulations. Weld County is the epicenter of Colorado’s oil and gas production, and the industry’s build-back has been slower than other sectors. I think that the impact of oil and gas as a major industry in northern Colorado is a contributing factor in their lagging recovery,” said Brian Lewandowski, executive director of the Business Research Division at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder.Ĭrews work at an oil and gas rig in Weld County on Nov. “They have been slower to recover from the pandemic in terms of economic activity, in terms of jobs. ![]() Colorado Springs’ recovery rate is 123%, the state’s best. But Greeley and the rest of Weld County has recovered just 57% of their pre-pandemic job levels.Įmployment in the other six metro areas is higher than before the pandemic broke out in March 2020. Overall, Colorado’s employment has rebounded and then some, reaching 117% of pre-pandemic levels in September and surpassing the U.S. ![]() Nearly three years after the start of the pandemic, Greeley is the only one of Colorado’s metro areas whose economy hasn’t fully recovered and the reason might be the same one for its previous robust growth - the oil and gas industry. ![]()
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