Northern Colorado Labor Market Profile Released to Shape Regional Talent Strategy
Larimer and Weld county officials have released labor-market data and interactive dashboards to guide workforce investment decisions for 2026. The Northern Colorado Labor Market Profile identifies six priority industries expected to drive regional hiring and provides detailed metrics on job quality and accessibility across both counties.
Larimer County Economic & Workforce Development, Fort Collins Economic Health, and the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce partnered on the study. The tools will support the NoCo Works workforce development coalition in designing a regional talent strategy. They'll guide how workforce training dollars are allocated.
TIP Strategies, a workforce research firm, prepared the quantitative study by examining two years of online job postings from March 2023 through February 2025, alongside official labor statistics and employer lists. The analysis maps current talent demand and assesses job quality across the two-county region.
Information Technology leads with 3,271 postings, followed by Food Processing & Manufacturing (3,079) and Business Services (2,107). Aerospace, Bioscience & Medical Devices, and Fabrication & Production Technology Manufacturing round out the six priority sectors.
Fort Collins' economic footprint varies sharply by sector. The city dominates IT (60 percent), Aerospace (81 percent), and Bioscience & Medical Devices (58 percent) postings. Greeley leads Food Processing & Manufacturing at 59 percent.
But raw job-posting volumes don't tell the whole story. Job quality reveals a deeper challenge.
The report benchmarks living wage at $44.61 per hour (for a household of two adults and two children). Only Information Technology's average advertised wage of $44.78 per hour meets that threshold. Eight of the 12 most in-demand occupations fall below the $44.61 living-wage benchmark, creating a policy choice about whether to prioritize funding for higher-wage IT pathways or invest in raising wages across manufacturing and logistics.
The new Job Quality and Access analysis provides "a better understanding of job quality and accessibility to promote growth and opportunity across all sectors," according to Larimer County's announcement.
Two interactive dashboards—Northern Colorado Workforce Analysis and Job Quality & Access—let residents and employers explore county-specific rankings and will inform the regional talent strategy rollout this year. Both dashboards are available at larimer.gov.