DENVER — Denver Business Journal and television partner 9News have partnered to create “Business Buzz,” a series of video conversations about some of the biggest issues in business and how they affect both employers and the people who live throughout the Denver region.
Ryan Frazier and Ed Sealover break down the ways in which the Denver area is most and least economically competitive on the latest episode of “Business Buzz,” while they also discuss flagging business confidence levels and go over three liquor-focused ballot initiatives.
This is the third episode of the new show pairing Frazier, the owner of ESG and management consulting firm Frazier Global and 9NEWS business expert for the station’s weekly “Business Brief” segment, with Sealover, senior reporter for Denver Business Journal. In each episode, the duo breaks down several business topics at length and dissects how they can impact the wider population of the metro area.
Following on the heels of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. Site Selectors Conference, in which professionals who help companies to relocate and to expand offered their assessments of Denver, Frazier and Sealover discuss the pros and cons of this region. The conversation leans heavily on CNBC’s “America’s Top States for Business” rankings, in which the Denver area scores high marks for its workforce but lower grades for its cost of living and of doing business.
Then the two discuss the recent University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business confidence index showing that company owners are getting very worried about diminishing sales and profits due to inflation and rising interest rates. Frazier and Sealover break down how this interacts with employers’ continuing struggles to find workers and assess what it may mean for employment and other factors as economists believe the U.S. is edging closer to recession.
Finally, in the episode’s segment on the interaction of business and politics, the duo discusses three ballot measures that would let all grocers and convenience stores sell wine, would permit third-party delivery of alcohol and would allow greater expansion for existing liquor stores. The issues pit most of the state’s liquor-store owners against grocers, Instacart and one large out-of-state company — Total Wine & More — and stir up questions about small business versus national chains and consumer convenience versus long-standing regulations.
Stay tuned for more “Business Buzz” episodes. The full episodes are available for streaming through the DBJ website and 9NEWS+.