Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am talk radio hosts, so I'm supposed to talk
about things going on in our neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
So that's one thing. I'm also an econ nerd.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
That's another thing I'm I'm you know, that was basically
my minor in college was economics. And well we're here
in Denver, so I and in Colorado, so I care
a lot about the fact that the University of Colorado
Leads School of Business recently put out this year's well
for next year but twenty twenty six Colorado Business Economic Outlook.
(00:30):
So joining us to talk about it is rich Wabakin,
who is the man behind this report and senior economics
researcher at the Lead School of Business. And it's always
a fascinating report. And I've read this, you know, multiple
times over the years, but I don't know that I've
talked to you about it, Rich, So welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's good to see you.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So I'd just like to start with the kind of
high level thing and then Gina and I both will
have some questions for you as we as we head in,
but I would like you to give as much of
a qualitative as quantitative answer as to how you see
the state of the economy in Colorado or the business
economy in Colorado as compared to what we have experienced
(01:13):
the last year or two, where it seemed to me
like the economy has been here good, but maybe not
as good as we have been used to in this state.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, that's definitely true. The twenty five economy actually is
somewhat slow, and up through say twenty twenty three, from
post global financial crisis, this state was booming. We were
top five in almost every economic category twenty twenty four,
(01:43):
twenty twenty five sload even a little bit more, but
consistent with sort of the national economy in twenty twenty five,
and we're sort of projecting the same thing going forward
to twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So, in the report or in your own mind, whether
or not it's in the report, to what do you
attribute the slowing economy in Colorado?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, Uh, it's a question that everybody gives you a
variety of things, to be honest, you know, but you
know one of them is we surged into recovery after
COVID and hired a tremendous amount of high tech workers,
and now that sector is repositioning itself with you know,
(02:29):
less demand as more of that.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That service has been provided.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
And so we see major consultants and tech people in
slow down mode nationally and certainly Colorado was sharing and
we shared in the overgrowth and we're sharing in the undergrowth.
The questions about affordability.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I still as an economic development person think about that
a lot. And what's creating the affordability or lack of affordability?
Uh And you know the issues behind that as well,
but you know, some of it is attributable to slower
population growth as well, and that you know, and we
had a very interesting transition in our population growth. This
(03:12):
is not a political statement, this is a factual statement.
We are population in migration. Our domestic domestic migration as
they call it, was largely the in migration up through
twenty twenty three tended to always overshare in people coming
from other states as opposed to other countries. Up to
(03:37):
twenty three and twenty three and twenty four that flipped
completely and we had far more immigrants that were international
immigrants into the state. And so in that process of
that change or transition, now with a slowdown and international
migration just going to see a pretty significant slowdown in
(03:59):
popular So.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Lots of variety of factors of why we could see
us slowing in our economy coming up next year, some
in our control, some out of our control. But I
think I want to start with the first thing that
you mentioned, talking about the slowing of the tech sector.
What are some of the pretty much driving job sectors
in our states? What continues to be what will we
(04:22):
see in twenty twenty six as some of those major employments,
so the.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Big employment cards. I mentioned the tech sector in our
in our report, and I want to make this very clear.
We put this out every year and we use a
lot ofometrics and so on, but we have one hundred
and thirty committee members from all these different sectors who
contribute to this booklet, who tell us about feet on
the ground kinds of views of what's going on. So
(04:48):
that's why the report is so voluminous and has so
much qualitative information in it. But what we're seeing the
tech folks still think that twenty twenty six will be
in a a year, and we have a decline in
jobs again and professionals and business services PDS, which is
the high tech sector, but we have pretty strong growth
(05:12):
in trade transportation and utilities, and some other areas. So
we wind up having eight sectors with job growth out
of the eleven sectors, and stronger job growth overall than
this year, although still very tepid job growth.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
We're talking with Rich Wabikin from the CU Leads School
of Business. So I'm an econ nerd. As I said,
and as I think about all these things you're talking about,
in a sense, my mind just thinks this is how
markets work, right in that Colorado is.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
A place lots of people want to live.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
People move here over a long period of time, it
gets more crowded, it gets more expensive, and as it
gets more expensive, homes are more expensive, and such things
like that. It's a price signal to other people who
are thinking about moving here. Hey it's not so cheap anymore, right,
just like the price of anything else might dissuade buyers.
(06:07):
And at some point you're going to have, you know,
maybe net population outflow for a while until various things
balance again. I think one thing that's a little bit
different with a state versus a normal market is that
normal market forces maybe if prices, if something went up,
you'd get a new factory. That's creating those things and
(06:28):
driving the process down. But here in Colorado, for example,
with the price of housing so high, we still have
all kinds of regulatory barriers and things like that that
are preventing normal market forces from potentially lowering these costs.
So how's that for an econ nerd comment.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
I think it's very accurate. And you know, we people
from the outside say, well, everybody's coming to this state
because it's a beautiful state and has all these amenities
and stuff. But if you look at the migration to
the state over time, over the long haul, we didn't
have good migration into the state when the jobs weren't plentiful.
(07:07):
And now even more so with what the comment you
just made, if you don't have plentiful kind of high
wage jobs, then it's a very difficult transition for someone
to make.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
If they come here and.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
They get a higher wage job, then they can deal
maybe with a little bit more with the affordability issue,
but an absence of that it makes it tough to
get people to move in. And without geeking out on
the data in the book, we are one of the
highest average annual wage states. We are one of the
top ten per capita income states. We're not a poor state.
(07:40):
We're well to do state, and prices are sort of matching.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
That. One last thing for you, Richie, I'd like one
minute here and again I'm a nerd. And what I
was wondering when you were talking about with the international
migration to Colorado, are those mostly high skill workers or
most of the low skill workers?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, you know, we don't know the sort of description
of that. Historically, we we have brought in a lot
of high skilled workers, you know, with with you know,
immigration visas and work work visas and.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So on, because we had a lot of high tech jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And this is true you know for the US as well,
you know, in terms of nationally. But I think, you know,
pretty much documented in those couple of years, there were
a lot of immigrants that came into the country from
other parts of the globe that were you know, political
refugees if you will. And I don't think necessarily had
this sort of in total had the same sort of
(08:40):
skill sets. You know, that's not necessarily bad because we
need people in a lot of those jobs too. So
don't know, I don't want to be making it sound like,
well we only need people with pH ds. We need
a lot of people to do a lot of different jobs,
and a number of the industries where those people have
gone on to work our industries that have had difficulty
(09:02):
finding workers.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Rich Wabikin at the CU Leads School of Business the
main guy behind the Colorado Business Economic Outlook Report for
twenty twenty six. They're sixty first annual such report. You
can find it online or you can easily find it
at my blog at Rosskiminsky dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But again, if you just search for the Colorado Business
Economic Outlook, you will definitely find it. Rich.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Thanks for your time, thanks for the interesting information. We'll
talk again my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Thank you,
I am talk radio hosts, so I'm supposed to talk
about things going on in our neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
So that's one thing. I'm also an econ nerd.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
That's another thing I'm I'm you know, that was basically
my minor in college was economics. And well we're here
in Denver, so I and in Colorado, so I care
a lot about the fact that the University of Colorado
Leads School of Business recently put out this year's well
for next year but twenty twenty six Colorado Business Economic Outlook.
(00:30):
So joining us to talk about it is rich Wabakin,
who is the man behind this report and senior economics
researcher at the Lead School of Business. And it's always
a fascinating report. And I've read this, you know, multiple
times over the years, but I don't know that I've
talked to you about it, Rich, So welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
It's good to see you.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
So I'd just like to start with the kind of
high level thing and then Gina and I both will
have some questions for you as we as we head in,
but I would like you to give as much of
a qualitative as quantitative answer as to how you see
the state of the economy in Colorado or the business
economy in Colorado as compared to what we have experienced
(01:13):
the last year or two, where it seemed to me
like the economy has been here good, but maybe not
as good as we have been used to in this state.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, that's definitely true. The twenty five economy actually is
somewhat slow, and up through say twenty twenty three, from
post global financial crisis, this state was booming. We were
top five in almost every economic category twenty twenty four,
(01:43):
twenty twenty five sload even a little bit more, but
consistent with sort of the national economy in twenty twenty five,
and we're sort of projecting the same thing going forward
to twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So, in the report or in your own mind, whether
or not it's in the report, to what do you
attribute the slowing economy in Colorado?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Well, Uh, it's a question that everybody gives you a
variety of things, to be honest, you know, but you
know one of them is we surged into recovery after
COVID and hired a tremendous amount of high tech workers,
and now that sector is repositioning itself with you know,
(02:29):
less demand as more of that.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
That service has been provided.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
And so we see major consultants and tech people in
slow down mode nationally and certainly Colorado was sharing and
we shared in the overgrowth and we're sharing in the undergrowth.
The questions about affordability.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
I still as an economic development person think about that
a lot. And what's creating the affordability or lack of affordability?
Uh And you know the issues behind that as well,
but you know, some of it is attributable to slower
population growth as well, and that you know, and we
had a very interesting transition in our population growth. This
(03:12):
is not a political statement, this is a factual statement.
We are population in migration. Our domestic domestic migration as
they call it, was largely the in migration up through
twenty twenty three tended to always overshare in people coming
from other states as opposed to other countries. Up to
(03:37):
twenty three and twenty three and twenty four that flipped
completely and we had far more immigrants that were international
immigrants into the state. And so in that process of
that change or transition, now with a slowdown and international
migration just going to see a pretty significant slowdown in
(03:59):
popular So.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Lots of variety of factors of why we could see
us slowing in our economy coming up next year, some
in our control, some out of our control. But I
think I want to start with the first thing that
you mentioned, talking about the slowing of the tech sector.
What are some of the pretty much driving job sectors
in our states? What continues to be what will we
(04:22):
see in twenty twenty six as some of those major employments,
so the.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Big employment cards. I mentioned the tech sector in our
in our report, and I want to make this very clear.
We put this out every year and we use a
lot ofometrics and so on, but we have one hundred
and thirty committee members from all these different sectors who
contribute to this booklet, who tell us about feet on
the ground kinds of views of what's going on. So
(04:48):
that's why the report is so voluminous and has so
much qualitative information in it. But what we're seeing the
tech folks still think that twenty twenty six will be
in a a year, and we have a decline in
jobs again and professionals and business services PDS, which is
the high tech sector, but we have pretty strong growth
(05:12):
in trade transportation and utilities, and some other areas. So
we wind up having eight sectors with job growth out
of the eleven sectors, and stronger job growth overall than
this year, although still very tepid job growth.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
We're talking with Rich Wabikin from the CU Leads School
of Business. So I'm an econ nerd. As I said,
and as I think about all these things you're talking about,
in a sense, my mind just thinks this is how
markets work, right in that Colorado is.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
A place lots of people want to live.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
People move here over a long period of time, it
gets more crowded, it gets more expensive, and as it
gets more expensive, homes are more expensive, and such things
like that. It's a price signal to other people who
are thinking about moving here. Hey it's not so cheap anymore, right,
just like the price of anything else might dissuade buyers.
(06:07):
And at some point you're going to have, you know,
maybe net population outflow for a while until various things
balance again. I think one thing that's a little bit
different with a state versus a normal market is that
normal market forces maybe if prices, if something went up,
you'd get a new factory. That's creating those things and
(06:28):
driving the process down. But here in Colorado, for example,
with the price of housing so high, we still have
all kinds of regulatory barriers and things like that that
are preventing normal market forces from potentially lowering these costs.
So how's that for an econ nerd comment.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
I think it's very accurate. And you know, we people
from the outside say, well, everybody's coming to this state
because it's a beautiful state and has all these amenities
and stuff. But if you look at the migration to
the state over time, over the long haul, we didn't
have good migration into the state when the jobs weren't plentiful.
(07:07):
And now even more so with what the comment you
just made, if you don't have plentiful kind of high
wage jobs, then it's a very difficult transition for someone
to make.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
If they come here and.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
They get a higher wage job, then they can deal
maybe with a little bit more with the affordability issue,
but an absence of that it makes it tough to
get people to move in. And without geeking out on
the data in the book, we are one of the
highest average annual wage states. We are one of the
top ten per capita income states. We're not a poor state.
(07:40):
We're well to do state, and prices are sort of matching.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
That. One last thing for you, Richie, I'd like one
minute here and again I'm a nerd. And what I
was wondering when you were talking about with the international
migration to Colorado, are those mostly high skill workers or
most of the low skill workers?
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Well, you know, we don't know the sort of description
of that. Historically, we we have brought in a lot
of high skilled workers, you know, with with you know,
immigration visas and work work visas and.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
So on, because we had a lot of high tech jobs.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
And this is true you know for the US as well,
you know, in terms of nationally. But I think, you know,
pretty much documented in those couple of years, there were
a lot of immigrants that came into the country from
other parts of the globe that were you know, political
refugees if you will. And I don't think necessarily had
this sort of in total had the same sort of
(08:40):
skill sets. You know, that's not necessarily bad because we
need people in a lot of those jobs too. So
don't know, I don't want to be making it sound like,
well we only need people with pH ds. We need
a lot of people to do a lot of different jobs,
and a number of the industries where those people have
gone on to work our industries that have had difficulty
(09:02):
finding workers.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Rich Wabikin at the CU Leads School of Business the
main guy behind the Colorado Business Economic Outlook Report for
twenty twenty six. They're sixty first annual such report. You
can find it online or you can easily find it
at my blog at Rosskiminsky dot com.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But again, if you just search for the Colorado Business
Economic Outlook, you will definitely find it. Rich.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Thanks for your time, thanks for the interesting information. We'll
talk again my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Thank you,
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.