After a week of good news with Denver area companies adding thousands of jobs, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment provided more positive economic growth news Thursday.

New regular jobless claims dropped sharply as 6,718 were filed for the week ending April 17, a 25% slide from the prior week’s total of 8,927. That’s eight weeks running of declining unemployment claims. It was, by far, the lowest total of new jobless claims in 2021.

New claims filed by self-employed, contract or “gig” workers stood at 1,310 for the week ended April 17, almost half the new claims filed by that group the prior week. Those workers are covered by the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program.

The total number of new claims for payroll and PUA-eligible workers was 8,028, a strong 28% drop from the total filed the week of April 10.

March’s state unemployment rate stood at 6.4%, unchanged from February. It was at 6.6% in January. Colorado’s unemployment rate was 4.7% in March 2020, just as the pandemic was triggering widespread business restrictions. Colorado’s unemployment rate remains above the national rate of 6%.

The declining unemployment claims come on the heels of a week of company job growth announcements, including:

Denver’s Fluid Truck keeping headquarters in Colorado

• Commercial truck sharing company Fluid Truck announced it will keep its headquarters in Denver and add almost 1,500 jobs in coming years.
• Tech company NextWorld recently said it was moving its HQ to Greenwood Village and adding 300 jobs.
• Financial giant Fidelity Investments announced it would add 375 jobs to its Greenwood Village contact center, on top of the 200 new jobs it announced late 2020.
• Television maker VIZIO revealed plans to open a “tech innovation office” in Denver, staffed by more than 100 by the end of 2022.

CDLE reports that 1,183,542 total claims have been filed since March 2020, and that $8.87 billion in claims have been paid.