Tim Harty, The Business Times

Some first-quarter economic numbers for Mesa County were released recently by the Colorado Mesa University Davis School of Business, and the numbers led the professor who writes the report to mention the “R” word.

CMU economics professor Nathan Perry compiles and analyzes the data for the Mesa County Economic Update each quarter, and two things stood out in the update published in May, which is online at: www.coloradomesa.edu/business/documents/mesa-county-economic-newsletter-may-2025.pdf.

First, he mentioned Mesa County’s unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in the first quarter, then dipped to 4.8 percent in April, which stands slightly higher than the state of Colorado’s non-seasonally adjusted 4.6 percent unemployment rate for April.

“Unemployment has crept up both in Mesa County and Colorado, higher than what the national unemployment has increased,” Perry said. “There is still job growth, and a lot of those gains have been in healthcare.”

Another item Perry highlighted in the economic update was the United States’ Gross Domestic Product growth for the first quarter of 2025 was minus-0.3 percent, “showing contraction and creating a growing concern for a potential recession.” During the fourth quarter of 2024, GDP grew 2.4 percent.

In an email interview, Perry wrote, “Growth is slowing, we saw a negative growth rate in Q1. Part of that was because of tariffs and how companies purchased more imports BEFORE the tariffs hit. We will likely see a higher Q2 number because of the opposite reason, we will see less imports in Q2 because businesses loaded up on pre-tariff inventory.

“Note that imports are a subtraction to GDP. Taking out the changes in imports, baseline growth is low, and we are on recession watch. I have been arguing that we will see positive but lower growth this year, and I’m sticking with that call until the data changes.”

For his thoughts about what the first-quarter numbers portend for the coming months, Perry offered, “Interest rates have not been friendly, the bond market is pushing yields higher and hurting mortgage rates. But the most recent inflation report was low, which bodes well for a potential change of direction for the Federal Reserve. No one is predicting the Fed to lower rates too much this year, but the more good CPI (Consumer Price Index) reports we get, the higher the probability of that happening.

“I think the Fed is waiting to see the impact of tariffs on inflation, which would happen 3-6 months out.”

And for Mesa County, he wrote, “Overall, Mesa is following the national trend. Growth is slowing and the labor market is slightly weaker, but no terrible data points. It looks to just be a slower year, with consumers pulling back after a few years of inflation, less wages increase, which make workers more cautious about leaving jobs.”