According to the Utah employment summary released by the Department of Workforce Services (DWS) for the month of August, the non-farm payroll employment for the month increased an estimated 2.5% across the past 12 months.
The state’s economy added a cumulative 41,400 jobs since August of last year and Utah’s current job count stands at 1,725,100. The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for August was estimated to be 2.5%, which is .1% increase.
There are approximately 45,800 Utahns that are unemployed, making Utah’s July unemployment rate unrevised at 2.4%. The national unemployment rate for August moved up three-tenths of a percentage point to 3.8%.
DWS Chief Economist Mark Knold stated that the Utah economy remains strong and viable. He said that anyone that desires to work should be able to find employment and that the job market is still attractive. However, a reduction in online job postings is a sign that the Utah job market has slowed.
“Job postings greatly outnumbered the available labor supply over the past two years, creating a wide gap between available jobs and worker supply,” Knold shared. “Within the past two months, however, the level of job postings has slowed, but it is still higher than Utah’s historically-normal job-posting level.”
The private sector employment in Utah for the month of August recorded a year-over-year expansion of 2.3%, which equates to a 33,300 job increase. Eight of the ten major private-sector industry groups posted net year-over-year job gains.