What’s Working: What Colorado’s population will look like in the future
“‘They’re on our roads. They’re in our houses. They’re on the ski slopes.’ I’m like, all right. But tell me what do you think about jobs? And the first thing they’ll say is, jobs rock. And we need more jobs. Job growth — good,” said Garner, sounding like a cartoon caveman.
More laughter.
“A job is a person and a housing unit is where that job sleeps at night. You cannot be pro jobs and anti-people,” she deadpans.
The always entertaining Garner, Colorado’s State Demographer, was speaking last week at The Colorado Sun’s first-annual SunFest (yes, we’re doing it again next year!) to lay out how the economic future of Colorado could change dramatically if the state doesn’t maintain its population growth, which has slowed.
Without new people — i.e., babies and adults who choose to move here — there won’t be enough people to fill the jobs vacated by retirees or fill the new jobs created as residents grow older. And the bulk of new residents has been at a stubbornly consistent age range of 22 to 37 years old. And what attracts young people? The outdoors, an affordable place to live and, more often than not, a job.
“Jobs drive migration,” she continued. “I hear people mention it all the time, ‘We don’t like people.’ So, you have to think about what jobs you are willing to do without if you don’t like people.”