Twenty Colorado businesses laid off fifty or more employees last month, the highest single-month total in four months, reports the Denver Business Journal.  The number of Colorado employers that let workers go en masse in April is nearly double the amounts seen in  February (10) and March (13).  The statistics are derived from the recent US Department of Labor report.

Experiencing a slight rise from March’s number (7.9 percent), Colorado currently ranks eighteenth among the fifty states at 8 percent.  The current national average is 9.9 percent.  In addition, approximately 2,200 workers filed new unemployment claims in April in the Centennial State.  In the last several months, the state has seen job cuts in the energy, financial and telecommunication sectors.