Something’s off with Colorado’s job market data.

Colorado recorded the biggest change to its employment numbers of any state, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ preliminary benchmark revisions for March. The revisions were released Wednesday.

The number of jobs reported in the state was down 2.5% — or 72,000 jobs fewer — than previously reported, the federal agency found.

The bureau releases job reports detailing employment after every month through a sampling process to get an idea on how the nation’s job market is faring. The monthly reports considered to be fairly accurate are later revised throughout the year as more data comes in through a process called benchmarking.

But as new data has come in over the last year, Colorado has been missing the mark.

Even the federal agency has noticed.

In January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted Colorado’s data “showed unusual movements.”

The agency removed Colorado’s data from its summary statistics several times last year and urged people to interpret the state’s labor market data from the 2023 months of March, September and December with caution.

The agency said the reason is likely the modernization of Colorado’s unemployment insurance premiums system.

“In my opinion, having done this long enough, it just really fell short in terms of telling an accurate economic story with the Colorado labor market,” said former state economist Ryan Gedney in a March media conference call about 2023’s benchmarking process finding unemployment was higher than originally believed.

Wednesday’s national report is considered preliminary and data won’t be finalized until next year.

A spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment attributed the issues to lower reporting rates from its Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages establishment.

The state used to have at least 95% of its establishments reporting employment data, on par with the national average, according to the bureau.

Then the state dipped to 40% in September 2023.

It quickly rebounded to 83% in December and 89% in March 2024, the most recent available. The national average was 96%.

“We continue to do manual estimations to address underreporting and late reporting, which involves a lot of staff time,” an agency spokesperson said. “In the meantime, we also continue our outreach and education efforts to do what we can to change employer behavior and ensure employers are meeting timely and accurate reporting requirements.”

The national revisions were large too, down 818,000 jobs or 0.5%, the highest since 2009, according to an analysis from the economic think-tank Common Sense Institute based out of Greenwood Village.

While revisions don’t matter as much in a robust job market, the think tank said, in the current climate it can make a difference between whether a state is seeing growth or declines.

“For states like Colorado the significant downward revisions cast doubt on the already sour economic picture drawn by the monthly employment numbers reported over the last year,” the analysis found.