A marketing effort in recent years has used the term “Silicon Slopes” to describe the fast-growing, tech-heavy area of northern Utah County and southern Salt Lake County. But Natalie Gochnour has a suggestion for a new name.
The “So-No Corridor” is what Gochnour called the area during the recent 10th annual Governor’s Utah Economic Summit. The “So” refers to the southern part of Salt Lake County, while the “No” relates to the northern part of Utah County, and the name articulates the blending occurring between the two counties. The rise of Utah County, the second-largest county and economy in the state, was among eight Utah issues that will define 2016, she said.
“It is coming out of the ground,” she said of Utah County, “and in a very big way because of the joining of Salt Lake County and Utah County. These are our two largest counties that are coming together, and as they’re coming together, all sorts of symbioses are happening,” said Gochnour, associate dean at the Davis Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah and chief economist at the Salt Lake Chamber.
In the “So-No Corridor,” from Midvale to Pleasant Grove, a distance of 25 miles, there are 17 cities and 235,497 jobs, including 57,755 added since 2010. The area accounts for 40 percent of the state’s job growth since then.
“Isn’t that remarkable? It’s an economic jewel what’s happening as these two counties come together,” she said, adding that the state has an obligation to plan for that growth “and continue to find places for all of these great tech workers and medical device workers and others in the state.”
Utah County’s job growth rate is 5.9 percent, about twice the state average and nearly three times that of the U.S. Gochnour predicts the county will continue to grow because it has about 200,000 buildable acres, while, in comparison, Salt Lake County has about 30,000.
“So as the Utah economy has grown and we keep having children and we keep finding places for them to live and jobs for them to have, we’re going to see Utah County continue to grow,” she said.
Another issue deserving of attention is Utah’s declining fertility rate. While a woman in 1960 had an average of 4.3 children, it’s now at 2.33 — an all-time low.
“We don’t talk about it much. Many people don’t know that. But we’re having fewer children. And it’s kind of a big deal, economically,” Gochnour said. Utah’s traditional rapidly growing population and young overall population have resulted in a healthy, affordable and tech-savvy supply of people, making Utah attractive to employers.
Another issue worthy of focus is rising wages, she said. Average annual growth in wages was as high as 5.6 percent in 2007 but sunk to 1 percent in 2013. It grew to 2.7 percent in 2015 and was 3.1 percent last year.
“This is a great thing in our state. I recognize many of you are business leaders and this is a cost of doing business to you, but our wages have not kept pace in a way that I would have guessed, given the rapid job growth and low unemployment,” she said.
“This is good news for Utah and it’s positive for our economy. This is employers sharing the wealth and giving Utah workers who have helped create that wealth a chance to support their families and, by the way, go to Jazz games, buy cars and do a lot of things that are good for the economy.”
Gochnour also called for a “re-imagining” of rural Utah. Counties reliant on energy production are suffering, she said. In those with 3,000 jobs or more, Duchesne County has had 16.5 percent nonfarm job losses, while Uintah County has lost 10.9 percent. Carbon, Emery and Sevier also have lost jobs, while counties to the west of those five counties have experienced large job growth.
“A good part of rural Utah is economically challenged, and I think we have a responsibility as a state to find a way to help grow rural Utah and provide opportunities for those counties,” she said. “We really have two Utahs right now: energy Utah and non-energy Utah.”
Gochnour also called for investment in water development as a key to continued Utah economic growth.
“We have a growing economy and a growing population. You have to invest,” she said. Utah has relatively low water rates and she challenged the state to invest “in a way that inspires conservation and has water users pay their fair share.”
Gochnour highlighted Utah’s strong entrepreneurship and innovation, including having the University of Utah second in the nation at spinning companies out of university research.
High-tech employment growth between the third quarter of 2014 and the same quarter in 2015 was led by Provo in first place and Salt Lake City in third, sandwiching San Francisco and besting San Jose, Portland and Seattle.
“[That’s] really remarkable growth in the tech sector,” she said.
Utah overall is in its sixth year of economic expansion, and its unemployment rate has fallen the past five years. It currently is at about 3.4 percent, with 50,300 net new jobs in the past year. By comparison, new jobs as recently as 2011 totaled only about 27,000.
And if Utah can pay attention to the issues she raised at the summit, she said, “I think our future’s bright.”