The economy has been on a lot of peoples’ minds as the war in Iran drives up gas prices, shakes global markets and inflation surges.
Wyoming is feeling all of that, on top of preexisting sluggish growth.
David Bullard is a senior economist with the state Department of Workforce Services who studies trends in employment by sector. Wyoming Public Radio’s Kamila Kudelska called him up for a check-in.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Kamila Kudelska: So you study the health of Wyoming's economy and workforce. What do you see as bright spots and areas that are struggling?
David Bullard: Some areas where we're seeing job growth is the leisure and hospitality sector. We also see growth in construction. A lot of that seems to be related to data centers as well as other large projects, whether it be wind farms or, probably, a lot of it's energy related.
We also see growth in healthcare and social assistance. That's a sector that has grown very steadily over the years. So even when the overall economy might be struggling a little bit, we still tend to see growth.
KK: You mentioned that we've seen gains in construction, but it looks like there's been job gains in non-residential building construction, but losses in residential building. Does that signal a shift in Wyoming's economy?
DB I guess one thing to keep in mind when we're talking about job growth is labor supply tends to be fairly tight, and so it's possible that job growth could be limited by labor supply in some areas. If companies come in and they're working really hard on building the data centers, they could pull a lot of the labor in their direction and then those employees, those workers, are not available for other projects. The labor market is very fluid and people can change jobs every day.
KK: There is a slowdown in Wyoming's economy, even with this potential growth. Why do we have that slowdown?
DB: We're seeing the national economy slow down. Some of that's related to higher interest rates here in Wyoming. Some areas where we see job losses, the natural resources and mining sector continues to lose jobs. The latest data for January suggests that employment's down by 900 jobs or 5.7% from a year earlier, but it's been on a fairly steady decline. We see job losses in coal mining, and that's been steady over a number of years. We also see job losses in oil and gas. The rig count is very low. Last week it was at 16, which is low. It’s down from a year earlier when it was 21. If we go back just before the pandemic to 2019, the rig count was in the 30s, I think through that whole year.
Now, even within mining, there is a bright spot, and that is uranium. We see job growth there. Recent data suggests that for uranium mining and related things, we've added more than 100 jobs compared to a year earlier. So that is an area of growth.
KK: Do you have any thoughts on what a shrinking workforce signals for this state as a whole in that area?
DB: It's hard to overemphasize how important the mining sector is to the state of Wyoming by mining. We include oil and gas in that, and so it's a little bit disappointing or discouraging to see continued job losses there. Of course, the state's been through lots of ups and downs over the years and things can change quickly.
KK: The unemployment rate has risen to 3.6% in January of this year. What does that mean to the economy?
DB: Our unemployment rate kind of hit a low point in 2023 at 2.8%. It's been creeping up a little bit since. That's consistent with the national trends. One difference though is our unemployment rate is quite a bit lower than the U.S. rate [of] 4.3% in January.
KK: Let's switch to wages. Can you share what an average Wyomingite earns?
DB: The average weekly wage [is] $1,215 a week. That's the average across all the industries and all the counties.
KK: Do we have an idea of where in the state or in which industries we're seeing the biggest gains or losses in wages?
DB: It looks like the mining sector wages increased the most in dollar terms. It increased by $108 per week, going from $1,942 to over $2,050 a week. It's a 5.6% increase. That was followed by manufacturing, where it increased by $98 or 6.7%.
KK: And are wages in Wyoming keeping up with the cost of living?
DB: Just barely. The statewide average weekly wage increased 2.6%, and that's the latest data we have. And the latest consumer price index for the nation was 2.4%, so just barely ahead of inflation.
KK: Is there anything that I should have asked or anything you'd want to mention?
DB: One labor market statistic called the labor force participation rate. It's the 16 and over population, the percentage of that population who's either working or who is unemployed and out looking for work.
If the labor force participation rate is increasing, there's more people available to work. Unfortunately, here in the state, our labor force participation rate has been generally trending downward for at least 15 years. Part of that is kind of the same thing we see at the national level with the retirement of the baby boomers, and there's no upper end on the population that goes into this. So as people kind of age into retirement and leave the workforce, that puts downward pressure on the labor force participation rate.
I did a quick comparison for our 2025 annual averages to two years before, and that showed that in most age groups, the participation rate was decreasing even within those age groups. One exception was the 45 to 54 year olds, where we saw an increase of 1.9 percentage points. And then in the 65-plus, we saw an increase of one-tenth of 1%. So all the other age groups, the 16 to 19, 20 to 24, showed slight decreases in the labor force participation rate.
KK: Does that mean there are just not as many that are available in the state to work?
DB: It means that people are choosing not to work. They could be going to school and not working, not looking for work. They could be caring for family members. They could be retired, they could be disabled. There could be any number of reasons why people have, as we say, dropped out of the labor force, but it is a concern.
