In 2022, Jordyn Hailey landed a job as a youth counselor in an all-girl group home in Grand Junction. She did so without a high school diploma — a result of her own rocky youth — and with limited experience, thanks to a strong job interview.
She eventually left the gig in 2023, and didn’t re-enter the workforce for several years for a variety of personal reasons. Now a cosmetology student at Intellitec — and the holder of a high school diploma — the 25-year-old resumed looking for a job in February of 2025. Since then, every morning has started with a flurry of applications and searches through job-hunting sites. But after nearly a year of submitting countless applications, sometimes five to 10 per day, she’s landed only one interview, for a hotel she called “sketchy,” offering overnight hours she ultimately couldn’t accept as a single parent.
“Typically, if I can get an interview, it’s pretty solidly in the bag, for me,” Hailey said. “This has never, ever been a problem for me … to feel as defeated as I do by simply not being able to find a job, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is pathetic, holy crap.’ It’s kind of been like a smack in the face.”
Experiences like Hailey’s are increasingly common in the Grand Valley, and across the state.
From August to October, the Grand Junction Metropolitan Area cut its number of non-farm employees by about 1,100 people compared to the year prior, with another reduction of 400 shed in November, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s the first year-over-year reduction in the local workforce since March of 2021, the tail-end of pandemic-fueled shocks to the global labor market.
But counterintuitively, the local unemployment rate — the share of people willing and able to work who aren’t doing so — also shrank noticeably in 2025, from 5.4% in January of 2025 to 3.6% in November, according to Mesa County Workforce Center Director Heather Nara.
And despite the shrinking workforce, Grand Junction’s labor market seems increasingly competitive. The result: an increasingly frustrating year for prospective employees, and a busy 12 months for Nara’s office, which helps Mesa County residents with job applications, resume building, mock interviews, and even occasional professional training.
“In general, across this year, seen more individuals,” Nara said. “And when there’s a more competitive labor market, we do see increased traffic.”
The exact reason is hard to pinpoint. Nara suspects businesses are cutting labor spending where they can in the face of rising overhead costs for materials, insurance and other inflating expenses.
“It’s anecdotal, but I do think some employers are being a little bit more conservative if they have vacancies, vacancies are not necessarily being filled,” Nara said. “The county is a great example, I think, of that. Last year, there was a reduction in positions for cost-saving purposes. So could that be happening in other areas? I’m sure it could be.”
Grand Junction’s unemployment rate slightly exceeded Colorado’s statewide average for most of 2025, up until August, according to data provided by the Mesa County Workforce Center. Since then, the municipal area’s unemployment rate has perfectly matched the statewide average, although precise data is missing in October due to a lapse in BLS funding during the federal government shutdown.
The reduction in workforce size isn’t especially concentrated to one specific industry, according to the BLS. From September 2024 to the same month in 2025, reductions of a few hundred were noted in professions related to goods production (500); mining, logging and construction (400); and leisure and hospitality (200), among a handful of others that shrank by 100 or less. Those numbers fluctuated in more recent months, but numbers from October are difficult to verify because of the federal government shutdown, and those from November are only preliminary, for the moment.
Whatever the field, some job-seekers in Mesa County say they can’t seem to land a gig, no matter where they look.
“These positions are for things I’ve never even considered doing as a job, I’m in college for something totally different, however, it’s getting desperate,” Hailey said. “And even these places that are desperately hiring, I’m like, ‘OK, I haven’t heard anything.’ It’s kind of odd.”
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