Wyoming has lost a stunning 10,000 jobs in the natural resources and mining sector over the past decade, University of Wyoming economist Anne Alexander told the state’s business leaders this week at the 41st annual Governor’s Business Forum in Laramie.

The state’s other job categories have stayed close to the same, or even increased, but the mining category — which includes oil and gas jobs— has dropped precipitously.

“It just struck me, those folks have so many skills,” Alexander said, gesturing toward a bar chart that showed the state’s projected job trends for the decade. 

“Hopefully we can help them transition to those new and exciting (careers),” she added, meaning jobs in education & health services, professional & business services, and others that have shown healthy growth. 

“We’re expecting natural resources & mining to rebalance to pre-pandemic levels next year,” Alexander said. “But the sector has contracted.”

Categories expected to grow in the state next year include construction, wholesale, transportation, and utilities, she said. 

“Most of the rest of the sectors that we have in Wyoming are expected to either sort of remain steady or increase slightly,” she said. “The only sector that we’re expecting to see decline is something called other services and then public administration.”

Low Unemployment Continues

Unemployment in the state has ticked up slightly but remains quite low. That’s been a significant headwind for all economic sectors, but particularly those that are trying to grow. 

Alexander said she expects that number to grow slightly to 3.2%. The low unemployment, where jobs outnumber job seekers a little over 2 to 1, has pushed average household incomes up in Wyoming, and they continue to outpace the mountain region.

“We’re holding our own when it comes to population,” Alexander said. “We’re expecting a slight increase in 2025, primarily driven by older Wyoming residents 65 and older.”

High school enrollments are expected to drop 5.5% nationwide by 2030. In Wyoming, high school enrollments are expected to drop by 3.6% for the same period.

“So that has some implications for all of you as far as workforce goes,” she said, adding that it’s one of the big challenges state leaders face as they seek to diversify and grow the state’s economy.

On top of the enrollment drop, Wyoming also continues to see a large outmigration of its graduates to other states, at 37%, Alexander said.

On the plus side, Wyoming does punch above its weight when it comes to the number of science and engineering degrees, at 45.8%. That compares to the U.S. average of 35.7%.

Wyoming also has a healthy rate of patents awarded at 15.2 per 1,000 people in science and engineering professions, and its venture capital is above average as a percent of $1 million gross state product at $16,000. The national average for states is $10,000.

“In terms of venture capital dollars per deal, we rank No. 5 in the nation,” she said. “We’re about 11.5 million, and the U.S. average is about 10 million.”

Agriculture Has A Mixed Outlook

While a strong, stable outlook may be ahead for leisure, hospitality, tourism, construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and utilities, the picture is mixed for agriculture, according to Alexander.

“The reason is a lot of crazy stuff happening to the range up north,” she said. “There were some significant fires that are going to be really, really challenging times ahead for our ventures, especially as they’re a big part of our world.”

All told, Wyoming had more than 810,000 acres burn during the 2024 wildfire season, the second largest on record after 1988.

The Elk Fire west of Sheridan in the Bighorns burned more than 98,000 of those acres, while the Pack Trail and Fish Creek Fires ravaged more than 89,000 acres. Complex incident management teams were brought in to respond to those fires and help contain them, but ultimately they had to wait on snowfall and the onset of winter to really curtail them.

One bright spot in the agriculture sector, though, Alexander added, is a significant jump in direct-to-consumer trade, where farmers and ranchers skip the middlemen and sell their products themselves to consumers.

“That has actually seen kind of a giant increase of about 22% in the past five years,” she said. 

Agriculture, like oil and gas and mining resources, always sit in a more complex picture, Alexander added, because of the nature of commodities markets, which are perpetually in up and down, boom and bust cycles.

“Financial services are still in the complex mix, too,” Alexander said. “And that’s because of interest rates.”

Nationwide, the housing market is still “wild,” Alexander said, joking that this is a new, technical economics term. Inflation, as she sees it, is not really under control, either, and she feels the market response is signaling that the interest rate drops by the Federal Reserve may have been premature.

“A couple of things to keep an eye on,” she said. “The national debt continues to be concerning to a lot of economists. And there’s a lot of talk right now about tariffs and those do cause inflationary pressures. So that’s something to keep in mind.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.