Phil Castle, The Business Times

Nathan Perry quantifies the Mesa County economy with a variety of indicators and statistics. And a few encouraging words.

“I think Mesa County is doing really well,” says Perry, an economics professor at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction who compiles quarterly and twice-yearly economic updates for Mesa County and six other West Slope counties.

What’s more, Perry expects growth to continue in Mesa County, although at what could be a slowing pace — “positive, but sluggish” he says.

While he places the odds of a national recession at 50-50, he expects any downturn likely would be mild and short.

Perry recently released his second quarter update for Mesa County and talked about the results in a telephone interview with the Business Times.

With a more diversified economy, Mesa County has more closely followed national and state trends, Perry says. That’s especially true of the labor market with job gains and low unemployment rates.

The seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate for Mesa County slipped below 3 percent at 2.7 percent in April and 2.9 percent in May. Those levels are the lowest since the jobless rate fell to 2.5 percent in September 2019, the bottom in Mesa County for county level statistics going back to 1990.

As of May, the latest month for which numbers are available, Mesa County payrolls had increased 409 over the past year to 75,058. The work force, which includes the employed and unemployed, grew to 77,327.

Perry says Mesa County employment gains haven’t been as strong as national gains, but are trending toward a 10-year high in what’s usually peak employment in the fall.

The unemployment rate remains low and the labor market tight, he says, as some employees retired and others left the work force during the COVID-19 pandemic and never returned. But those trends could keep jobless rates low if the labor market slows and mitigate the effects of a recession is one occurs.

According to information from the fourth quarter of 2022 compared to the span in 2021, the biggest job gains in Mesa County occurred in the construction, oil and natural gas and health care sectors. Construction payrolls increased 367, while oil and natural gas payrolls rose 230 and health care employment 105.

Some sectors lost jobs between the fourth quarters of 2021 and 2022, Perry says, with payroll declines of 100 in finance and insurance, 84 in retail trades and 75 in manufacturing.

With a more diversified economy, Mesa County isn’t affected as much by cycles in the energy industry. But the sector remains an important one in the region that can speed or slow broader economic trends, Perry says. Lower natural gas prices could affect exploration and production in Western Colorado and in turn the job gains the sector has experienced over the last several quarters, he says.

In addition to employment gains, other indicators also offer encouragement, Perry says. They include tax collections, which serve as a proxy for consumer spending.

Through May, Mesa County collected a total of $21.3 million in sales and use taxes in 2023. That’s up more than 2 percent from the same five-month span in 2022.

The City of Grand Junction collected a total of more than $14.3 million in sales and use taxes during the first quarter of 2023. That was up 5 percent from the first quarter of 2022.

While some of the year-over-year gains can be attributed to inflation and higher prices, they also reflect increased spending, he says.

In addition, more businesses are opening in Mesa County, Perry says.

As of May, 1,264 new entity filings from Mesa County were recorded in 2023 with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. That’s up nearly 13.4 percent from the same span last year. Business filings constitutes a leading indicator of subsequent jobs and sales.

At the same time, though, real estate sales and new home construction has slowed in Mesa County even as interest rates have increased on mortgages and construction loans, Perry says. Sales prices  for homes have moderated while residential inventories have increased.

While building permits for multifamily projects have increased, permits for single-family homes have decreased, he says.

Looking ahead to the second half of 2023, Perry says he expects growth to continue in Mesa County, but at a slowing pace that reflects the effects of inflation and higher interest rates.

Speculation persists a recession could occur in the United States. But if that does occur, Perry says a downturn likely would be mild and short. There’s always a possibility something unforeseen could happen, he says. But he doesn’t otherwise expect the worse. “I just don’t see anything that’s going to cause a deep recession.”

As for Mesa County, Perry says he remains encouraged overall.