For some of Colorado's 250,000 unemployed residents, the Internet can be a time-sucking black hole into which hundreds of applications are submitted with little hope of receiving a reply—much less being hired. The culprit, according to both the employment seekers and the employee hunters, is the overload of apps sent through third-party employment sites and job boards like Monster and Craigslist (Denver Post). More luck may be had using social networking sites like Facebook or LinkedIn, or local sites that target specific industries, like metro-area-based Andrew Hudson's Jobs List, which is expanding its coverage territory this week to include northern and southern Colorado.

Another issue worth pondering is the difference in public versus private sector jobs. While the issue is hot in state legislatures in the wake of Wisconsin's labor battles, the Denver Post weighs the pros and cons of salaries and benefits in each category.

No doubt hundreds of women with staff discounts in mind will be applying to H&M if the store indeed opens in Denver. Bill Denton, the original developer of the Denver Pavilions, seems to think it will (Inside Real Estate News). Despite the loss of Saks Fifth Avenue and Niketown, the city's retail market is seeing a "positive rebound from the last quarter of 2010" (Denver Business Journal; subscription required).