The Department of Workforce Services (DWS) recently released the local insights and county snapshots for the state of Utah. It was stated that snapshots are a comprehensive look at a county’s economy and its performance.
This snapshot featured the year-to-year change in non-farm jobs, such as mining, construction, manufacturing, information, government and more. Government had the majority employment share at 25% and 2,071 employed while information had the lowest at 1% and 84 employed.
This second quarter data gave insight to the initial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the local economy, showing that Carbon County’s unemployment rate peaked in April at 9.7% with the job losses initially falling by 4.6% from April of 2019.
The second quarter ended for Carbon County with a 3.1% drop in employment from the previous June. This is in line with statewide average of loss, which was 3.3% employment. The loss corresponds to 280 total positions and the largest losses within the county occurred in the government sector. This was followed by mining, construction and trade.
It was stated that in comparison to other counties within Utah, Carbon County falls in the middle with job losses due to COVID-19 and the county fared better than the US average, which faced a loss of 8.7% of employment.
Similarly, Emery County saw loss this year. The snapshots showed that the county’s unemployment rate peaked in April at 8.5% and the county employment saw the largest decrease, which was 7.2%, between May 2019 and May 2020.
Trade was the highest in employment share for Emery County at 29% and with employment at 835.8. Manufacturing was the lowest at 18.4 employment and 1%. It was stated that county employment recovered slightly through the second quarter and between June 2019 and June 2020, the employment for the county fell by 2.7% and 93 jobs.
Some job loss in other sectors were offset by the growth in construction employment, adding 96 positions in the last year. The greatest losses were seen by leisure/hospitality, government and trade.
