With ups, downs, and nearly a daily dose of conflicting data, it seems Weld’s economy has been battling an identity crisis.

Since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, and even after its end in June 2009, county residents have seen reports of falling land values and foreclosures, a glut of commercial properties left vacant, out-of-business signs dangling from door knobs, and just this month the most recent unemployment numbers shooting upward from 8.8 percent in November to 9.1 percent during December, a loss of an estimated 1,681 jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, good news has been wedged into the mix. New employers within the oil and gas industry have entered Weld and are offering jobs. Cheese maker Leprino Foods opened its new Greeley plant late last year and created additional jobs. And, just this month TeleTech, a customer service delivery center, announced 1,000 jobs in Greeley and energy service provider Halliburton said 500 jobs are slated for Windsor.

The financial back and forth may be enough to provoke doubt in a firm direction for the county. But local economists and government officials said they see the negatives as only hiccups within Weld’s rebound.

“There is an economic recovery under way. There is a very slow one, a very tepid one, but it’s a sustained one and one we can expect to continue,” said Martin Shields, an associate professor of economics at Colorado State University.

Shields spoke at the University of Northern Colorado earlier this month as part of the Northern Colorado Business Report’s Economic Forecast. He estimated that by the end of 2012, unemployment for Weld County will fall below 8 percent, and in Larimer, drop below 5 percent through the creation of 2,700-3,300 jobs.

The trending growth, Shields said, was a good heading in light of severe setbacks for the two counties since the Great Recession began. But Shields still said both counties are seeing a deficit of nearly 6,000 jobs from pre-recession numbers.

If the pre-recession job growth trends had continued — and the recession had not happened — both counties would have had an additional 15,000 jobs.

“Even though we might be bouncing back, we are nowhere near full employment,” Shields said.

Top industries Weld’s top 10 industries for the second quarter of 2011, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment: » 1. Manufacturing » 2. Education services » 3. Health care and social assistance » 4. Retail trade » 5. Construction » 6. Accommodation and food services » 7. Public administration » 8. Administration, support, waste management, remediation » 9. Mining » 10. Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting

A steady rise

Despite the long road ahead, significant progress has been made and a trend toward lower unemployment is under way.

For example, even at 9.1 percent unemployment, Weld has seen unemployment drop dramatically from its peak unemployment of 11.6 percent last year with 13,557 unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Employment and real estate indicators are pointing to a measurable rise in the Greeley economy, as well. This month the National Association of Home Builders, a national trade association promoting housing, listed Weld as one of 40 new metro areas within its First American Improving Markets Index — which measures an area’s employment, home prices and housing permits.

Luanne Kadlub, media relations manager at the Better Business Bureau serving Northern Colorado and Wyoming, said the BBB also has noticed steady growth and is increasing staffing to accommodate demand with two new staff members.

“We have not experienced a net loss in the number of BBB Accredited Businesses,” Kadlub said.

More good news can be found in Greeley’s sales tax revenues, which report sales and use tax revenues rising by 9.3 percent, a roughly $3.5 million increase from 2010 to 2011, to total $41.4 million in sales tax revenues.

Greeley Economic Development Manager Bruce Biggi said he sees the sales tax revenue increasing as a result of the investments by companies such as Leprino, beef company JBS USA and the oil and gas industry.

“It’s got great multipliers because businesses are close to home,” Biggi said.

Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway said the positive economic indicators are due to Weld’s business-friendly focus that doesn’t impose unnecessary taxation on businesses like a county sales tax and keeps the county away from short-term or long-term debt and prohibitive regulations.

“It doesn’t matter what economic indicator you look at … all of those indicators are upping for Weld,” Conway said. “It all centers around a basic philosophy.”

Despite the higher-than-expected unemployment numbers for December, Conway said Weld is building a strong and diversified economy that will provide more jobs in the coming years.

“What I can tell you is that I’m comfortable saying Weld’s unemployment is dropping,” Conway said. “Weld County is open for business.”

Fastest-growing occupations Weld’s top 15 fastest-growing occupations expected to grow between 2010 and 2020, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment: » 1. Service unit operators, oil, gas and mining » 2. Roustabouts, oil and gas » 3. Personal and home care aides » 4. Database administrators » 5. Network systems and data communications analysts » 6. Pharmacy technicians » 7. Painting, coating and decorating workers » 8. Compensation, benefits and job analysis specialists » 9. First-line supervisors/managers of construction trades and extraction workers » 10. Computer software engineers, applications » 11. Construction laborers » 12. Financial analysts » 13. Insurance sales agents » 14. Technical writers » 15. Computer-controlled machine tool operators, metal

The big three

Within Weld County, the largest three employers for the county’s roughly 82,000 employees are within the industries of manufacturing, at 13.5 percent of the total workforce; in education services, at 10.3 percent; and within health care and social assistance at 9.7 percent employment combined, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

Of Weld’s three major employing industries, only education appears to show a significant decline.

Weld’s major school district, Greeley-Evans School District 6, was hit with more than $6 million in state funding losses in 2011 and saw cuts in 2010 that led to closing or consolidating schools, teacher layoffs, salary freezes and program cuts. In three years the district has lost more than 300 teachers and staff positions.

At the University of Northern Colorado, a partial hiring freeze is still in effect for positions with annual salaries of more than $25,000.

All other top-employing industries are making strong gains, especially manufacturing, which includes parts of the oil and gas industry.

Doug Flanders, director of policy and external affairs at the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, said oil and gas activities bring high wages that are spent locally and represent a major advantage to the region.

“The average oil and gas wage in Weld County is $69,104 per year,” Flanders said.

Considering current oil and gas production and the fact that statewide infrastructure in refineries and existing pipelines are above 90 percent capacity, Flanders said COGA expects additional jobs in the future.

Tisha Conoly-Schuller, COGA president and CEO, said at the January UNC forecast that as infrastructure and oil and gas-related employment rises, she anticipates 400 new oil wells will be drilled in the next couple of years. Most are likely to be in Weld and surrounding areas.

Within health care, and specifically within hospital employment, Weld is projected to see an additional 374 hospital employees per year until at least 2019, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

Evidence of this expansion can be seen in the past two months, as competing health systems Banner Health and Poudre Valley Health System both announced new emergency services in west Greeley to open in early summer. PVHS plans to build a $14.5 million, 22,000-square-foot emergency room and surgery center on 70th Avenue; Banner plans to create a new emergency department a mile away on 71st Avenue.

Financial statistics within the industry of social assistance remain confidential by the department.

The Real Estate factor

Real estate is also on the rise, but it may take years to fully recover.

Jason Ells, vice president of Cassidy Turley/Fuller Real Estate, also speaking at the UNC forecast, said while multi-family homes in both Larimer and Weld counties may be on the rise, commercial real estate remains slow since there has been a 50 percent increase in vacancy rates from 2008-10.

“That’s a substantial amount of commercial space coming back onto the market,” Ells said.

Ells said though land prices have stabilized, they’ve stabilized at 7 to 8 percent below what they were five years ago, and he forecasted them to be stagnant for another 18-24 months with a lack of construction and development until about 2015.

Sales volumes, he said, still appear 25 percent lower than what they were at their peak 2007.

“Financing is certainly still the key, not just for real estate but for the economy in general,” he said. “We have to have a flow of cash for all of us to be healthy in our businesses.”