Steady jobless figure signals state's economic health, resilience

Steady as she goes.

Utah’s stable economy was confirmed by the recent report of July’s jobless rate by the Utah Department of Workforce Services (DWS). The unemployment rate held steady at 2.4 percent, unchanged from June, leaving about 43,800 Utahns without a job.

Meanwhile, the July national unemployment rate inched down one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.5 percent.

Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for July 2023 increased an estimated 3 percent across the past 12 months, with the state’s economy adding a cumulative 49,300 jobs since July 2022. Utah’s current job count stands at 1,720,300.

“The post-COVID economic resilience remains the dominant picture of the Utah economy,” said Mark Knold, chief economist for DWS. “The job market is still robust as job postings remain plentiful. The large excess of job postings above the long-term norm that we have been speaking about for the past two years has now subsided, but even returning to a 'normal' level of job postings is a healthy picture for the Utah job market. People still have a positive outlook toward the Utah labor market. The percentage of the state’s working age population that are active in the labor market is at its highest level in 14 years.”

Utah’s July private-sector employment recorded a year-over-year expansion of 2.8 percent, with a 40,600-job increase. All 10 major private-sector industry groups posted net year-over-year job gains, including financial services, which had been recording job losses for the past year. The overall job gains were led by leisure and hospitality services (up 17,500 jobs), education and health services (up 10,200 jobs), other services (up 4,400 jobs) and construction (up 4,200 jobs).

Additional employment data tables and analysis, including county unemployment rates, can be accessed at https://jobs.utah.gov/wi/update/index.html.