COVID In Colorado: Outlook Shows Economic Recovery Could Take Years

BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) - Researchers say a COVID-19 vaccine will be key to helping Colorado's economy bounce back from the pandemic. The University of Colorado Boulder's Leeds Business research division released their annual economic outlook on Monday.

They project the state will get back 40,500 jobs in 2021, a little more than a 1% increase and still less than one third of the estimated jobs lost in 2020.

Nine of the state's 11 industries are expected to add jobs. The Leisure and Hospitality sector is expected to see the largest amount of growth, after experiencing huge losses at the start of the pandemic.

Walter Isenberg is the CEO of Sage Hospitality which manages a number of hotels across the Front Range.

"We had 6,200 employees in our company, at the worst time in April we laid off 90% of our workforce," he said.

He says the economic outlook is promising, but knows it will take much longer to see a full recovery.

"Once that fear factor is gone, and over time it will go away, that's when we are going to really start to see the numbers grow," he said.

The Colorado Business outlook is released annually, but this year Executive Director Brian Lewandowski said it was particularly challenging to produce given the number of unknowns that could potentially impact the forecast.

"There's a lot of promise in a vaccine right now, but we need to see when everyone has access to that vaccination and how effective it is. Even beyond that, how long does it take human behavior to recover?" Lewandowski asked.

While Colorado is projected to see a small increase in job growth, at least one sector will see no improvement.

"The largest by far will be the government sector, down 6,900 jobs in 2021."

While ongoing restrictions will also play a role in loss of business across the board, Isenberg says they can put in place all every safety measure they can think of but a full recovery will rely heavily on consumers.

"If people don't feel safe, it doesn't really make much difference," he said.