With an unemployment rate that continues to hover around 2 percent, Utah’s economy is still leads the nation in most respects. The jobs report for March showed the state’s unemployment edging back down from 2.1 percent to 2 percent, best in the U.S. That leaves about 33,400 Utahns still without work.
The national jobless rate also ticked down one-tenth of a point in March to 3.6 percent.
Meanwhile, Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for March increased an estimated 4 percent over the past 12 months, with the state’s economy adding a cumulative 62,900 jobs since March 2021. Utah’s current job count stands at 1,650,800, according to numbers released by the Utah Department of Workforce Services (DWS).
“It is another month to sing the praises of the Utah economy,” said Mark Knold, chief economist at DWS. “Job growth across the past year is quite strong at 4.0 percent. In response, the unemployment rate took another historical notch downward to 2 percent. All industry sectors save one have added new jobs over the past year. The lone exception is the professional and business services sector. That area includes help supply services, telemarking, collection agencies, etc. With unemployment rock-bottom at 2 percent, excess labor is virtually non-existent, so this industry’s inability to supply the market with idled workers or to attract labor for its own needs is not a surprise.”
Utah’s March private-sector employment recorded a year-over-year expansion of 4.4 percent. Nine of Utah’s 10 major private-sector industry groups posted net year-over-year job gains, led by trade, transportation and utilities (up 16,100 jobs); leisure and hospitality (up 13,600 jobs); construction (up 7,100 jobs); and education and health services (up 6,800 jobs). The only sector to not record any job growth is professional and business services. This sector includes the help supply and temporary workers businesses, which make a living off of excess labor finding stop-gap or temporary help jobs. But with unemployment historically low, there is not much of an excess labor pool to work with, the DWS report said.