How this county's pay checks jumped 18%

Pay checks are getting bigger in Boulder County, Colorado, in 354 of the country's largest countries.

The northwestern region of Denver recorded an 18.5% increase in average weekly wages in the third quarter of 2019 compared to the previous year, according to quarterly census data for the year. employment and wages.

The astonishing jump was influenced by an anomaly: the C-Suite windfall from Pfizer's blockbuster $ 11 billion acquisition of Array BioPharma. But the underlying data released this month provides a window into what happens when the giants of Silicon Valley settle down and spread into a small community.

"I would say tech companies are a real foundation of our metropolitan Colorado economy," said economist Brian Lewandowski, who heads the business research division of the Boulder Campus at the University of Colorado.

For a region like Boulder, wage growth should come as no surprise. The region has experienced steady economic expansion since the Great Recession and an "innovation economy" that attracted IBM and Ball Aerospace decades ago and Google and Apple today.

"We see these Fortune 500 companies with a certain dimension of cutting-edge technology in their work not only setting up here but growing here," said Clif Harald, executive director of Boulder's Economic Council, l & # 39; economic development wing of the region's chamber. Trade.

Go beyond the numbers

The rate of wage growth in Boulder County was the largest increase in QCEW in 2.5 years and the fourth largest since 2015; however, it is not uncommon to see dramatic fluctuations in average weekly quarterly wages.

QCEW data represents the total compensation paid, so quarterly figures are frequently grouped together in the form of unique items such as bonuses, severance pay and stock options. Data can often show how business activities such as mergers, acquisitions, layoffs and IPOs affect the local community.

The abundant third quarter data from Boulder County seems to show the ripple effects of Pfizer's acquisition of Array, which was completed on July 30, 2019. The deal had to result in payments hundreds of millions of dollars Berry frames.

Full QCEW data shows that a particular industry, biotechnology research and development, has seen an increase in average weekly wages of almost $ 34,000 – a jump of 1,031%. The year-over-year change in quarterly wages in this sector was $ 476 million.

Excluding this aberrant third quarter, wages in Boulder County still rose a moving average of 6.3% in the four quarters ending in the second quarter of 2019, according to QCEW and data from the Department of Labor and Colorado Jobs. This exceeds national growth by 3 percentage points.

Two key factors playing into this growth for Boulder County are historically low unemployment rates and an influx of better-paying professional and technical service jobs, said Ryan Gedney, senior economist in the Colorado Department of Labor.

In 2019, Boulder County had an unemployment rate of 2.4%, which is lower in both Colorado and the United States, at 2.8% and 3.7%, respectively, according to data from the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment and Local Area Unemployment Statistics.

"Different companies are fighting over workers," he said. "It will drive up wage rates."

A technological hub is growing

Professional and technical services – think of R&D and IT design – have been the bread and butter of this region for years. Boulder County has the third highest concentration of professional and technical service jobs among the metropolitan statistical regions of the country, which puts it above the Bay Area.

And the segment has been a godsend of job growth for Colorado recently, accounting for a third of the jobs added last year, said Gedney.

"It is clear that many of our innovation companies, the technology industry in particular, are experiencing additional growth in Boulder, and these are better paying jobs and very desirable for any community," said John Tayer, CEO of the Boulder House.

Google is said to employ 1,300 people in Boulder and plans to double operations in Colorado, Boulder Daily Camera reported last month. Apple has plans announced to significantly increase its workforce there.

"Along with that, we also find that the rising tide lifts all the boats as our businesses move to town or grow," said Tayer.

On the other hand, the influx of people into a community that has long resisted growth, has driven up housing prices and driven down long-term residents.

"Income inequality, wealth gaps are issues that are not unique to Boulder," said Tayer. "We want our employees to earn wages that are suited to the work they do."

But as Boulder's dependence on tech jobs increases, local business leaders say Boulder and Colorado are more isolated now than they are. were during the dot-com crisis of the early 2000s or the energy collapse of the 1980s.

Colorado took longer to recover from the dot-com event than the Great Recession – by about a month – then ended up outpacing the nation in recovery from the Great Recession, said the CU-Boulder Lewandowski economist.

"What was our shortcoming in the early 2000s ended up being our comparative advantage in the 2010s," he said.

Since then, the state and the Boulder region have experienced economic growth in other industries such as health food, outdoor products, beverage manufacturing, as well as a contingent of long-standing federal research labs, said Clif Harald of the Boulder Economic Council.

"It has been a really important part of the evolution of the whole region, especially Boulder, over the past quarter century," he said.