This time each year I like to sift through the thick Colorado Business Economic Outlook done by the CU Leeds School of Business. The 2009 edition came out Monday, and you probably saw the headline news: The jobless rate will uptick to 6.5 percent from the current 5.7 percent, led by a loss of 11,200 construction jobs. Here are some tidbits that round out the rest of the story:

In Colorado, 500,000 net jobs were added in the 1970s. Only 264,000 net jobs were added during the 1980s. The decade of the '90s was a return to prosperity with a gain of approximately 650,000 jobs. The current decade shows the weakest job growth of the past four decades, with the addition of slightly more than 217,000 jobs.

In 2009, approximately 98,100 people will be added to the state's population, bringing the total to 5.1 million. The difference between resident births and deaths will account for 41,200; net migration will total 56,900.

Colorado is home to all, or part, of eight of the largest natural gas fields in the nation and three of the largest oil fields. Colorado is the seventh-largest coal producer in the nation.

The value of oil and gas production for 2008 is expected to increase 46.2 percent to $11.9 billion. The value of production is anticipated to moderate somewhat in 2009, because the current economic downturn is forecast to decrease both demand and price. The value is estimated to be $9.8 billion, or 17.5 percent lower.

About 75 percent of Colorado households use natural gas as their primary energy source for home heating, one of the highest shares in the United States. The 8.2 megawatt Alamosa Photovoltaic Solar plant is the second-largest solar plant in the country, and the 16th-largest photovoltaic plant in the world.

Electricity consumption was nearly flat in 2008, with more conservation efforts and a slowing economy. The state's rate of electricity consumption growth dropped from 2.4 percent in 2007 to just 0.1 percent in 2008.

The construction industry has been in recession since at least 2007, with total activity down 28 percent in the past two years, led by a steep drop in home building. This decline will continue into 2009, with a further decrease of more than 12 percent.

The number of single-family residential permits has declined every year in Colorado since 2005. The trend accelerated this year, with an overdue correction that reduced new permits by 44 percent. In stark contrast to the 20-year high of more than 40,000 single-family permits in both 2004 and 2005, permits will total only 11,500 in 2008, a 71 percent decline from those recent peak years. After the sharp 2008 decline, 10,200 permits are forecast for 2009, a further decline of 11 percent.

Troops returning to Fort Carson are expected to be the single-most important component of potential economic recovery for the Colorado Springs economy next year.

Construction expenditures for the West Line light rail, part of RTD's FasTracks program, should increase to between $300 million and $400 million in 2009 from $75 million in 2008.

Manufacturing in Colorado is a $15.2 billion industry, representing 6.4 percent of the value of all goods and services produced in the state. Colorado is the home of nearly 6,000 manufacturing companies, employing about 146,700 workers last year 6.3 percent of total state employment. Most of these are small businesses, nearly 80 percent employ fewer than 20 workers, whereas only 35 companies employ 500 or more. Manufacturers employed 144,500 in 2008, a decrease of 2,200 from 2007. Employment is expected to shrink an additional 1,000 jobs in 2009. This is consistent with national trends.

Colorado ranked fourth among states that generated the most economic activity per dollar of funding from the National Institutes of Health. The state received $336 million in NIH funding in 2007, generating $787 million. Colorado generated $2.34 for every dollar of funding, surpassed only by Texas, California and Georgia.

Retail trade employs more people than any other sector of the state's economy. Colorado's one-quarter million retail jobs account for more than one-tenth of the state's work force. Weekly earnings are less that 60 percent of those for all private workers.

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