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Unemployment reaches five-year high in resort communities Casper Star Tribune
July 04, 2003
FRISCO, Colo. - The unemployment rate has reached a five-year high in mountain resort communities, eclipsing the statewide average after leading the nation in low unemployment a couple of years ago.
''It's definitely not like it was three or four years ago, when anybody with a tool belt could get a job,'' said Travis Bennett of the Colorado Workforce Center in Frisco.
In the state's primary ski-resort communities, 4,424 people, or 7.4 percent, were unemployed in May, the most recent figures available. That compares with 5.5 percent statewide and 6.1 percent nationally.
Sonya Guram, an economist with the state labor department, said the May unemployment rate was in line with historic levels for this time of year, after the ski resorts close and before summer construction begins.
But the unemployment numbers for six major resort counties show a steady upward climb even considering the season.
Grand County's unemployment rate was 5.3 percent in May, but in all of 1999, it never exceeded 2.8 percent.
Unemployment in Routt County reached 6.3 percent in May, a rate not seen since the late 1990s.
In Eagle and Summit counties, unemployment reached 7.4 percent.
The nationwide economic slump contributes to unemployment because of declining tourism and construction.
In Summit County, the number of building permits has dropped each year from a high of 755 in 1997 to 443 last year, according to Larry Renfroe, director of the county building-inspection department.
Construction worker Ruben Zapata of Silverthorne is jobless except for the two hours a week he works with a friend's emergency road service.
With two children to support and a wife employed by the Arapahoe Basin ski area, Zapata, 24, was answering a call for a part-time retail job that pays $8 an hour.
''It's depressing. But I've got to pay the rent,'' he said.
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