Utah job growth rate tops nation for both past 10 years and past 20 years

Utah leads the nation in job growth for both the past 10-year period and the past 20-year period — and by a significant margin. That’s according to employment recruitment website Zippia in its quarterly job-growth report released last month.

For the 10-year period ending in March, Utah had a 31.2 percent job-growth rate to top all other states. Idaho and Florida tied for second at 26.2 percent, followed by Texas (24.8 percent), Nevada (24.3 percent), Oregon (23.7 percent), Washington (23.1 percent) and Colorado (22.7 percent). North Dakota and South Carolina rounded out the top 10 tied at 21.7 percent. Wyoming finished last in job growth, losing 0.8 percent of its jobs in the past 10 years.

Utah had a 50.7 percent job growth rate over the past 20 years — also tops in the nation, according to California-based Zippia. Idaho’s 20-year rate was 45.8 percent and Florida’s was 35.2 percent.

Utah was also among the top five in year-over-year job growth since last March at 3.1 percent.

Zippia’s figures show that the nation as a whole added about 1.58 million jobs (1 percent) since last March and 20 million new jobs since the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

“Growth is up across a wide range of fields from tech to tourism,” the Zippia report said regarding Utah. “Job growth has been particularly high in the construction sector due to projects such as the $3 billion Salt Lake City International Airport, a $600 million state prison, an 855,000-square-foot Amazon distribution center, along with another $1 billion planned for road construction and $600 million for school buildings construction. In addition, software giant Adobe is investing over $90 million in the next couple of years, which promises to add another 1,000 high-skilled workers.”