Denver—Colorado’s jobless rate finished the year with a small increase. According to the state labor department, unemployment rose two-tenths of a percentage point from November to December to 3.5 percent. Officials say the slight increase is due to a combination of factors; the number of people actively participating in the workforce increased by over 9,000 while the number of people reporting themselves as actually employed jumped by only 41-hundred. Nationally, the unemployment rate was up by tw0-tenths of a percentage point to 3.9 percent in December.
