The Department of Workforce Services (DWS) released Utah’s employment summary for the month of April last week. To start, it was reported that the non-farm payroll employment for April increased an estimated 2.6% across the past year.
The state’s economy has also added a cumulative 43,500 jobs since this time last year. With this information, the Beehive State’s current job count stands at nearly 1,720,300.
The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for the month of April stood at an estimated 2.3%. This means that approximately 41,300 residents are unemployed, while the current national unemployment rate decreased slightly to 3.4%.
DWS Chief Economist Mark Knold stated that the Utah economy has slowly decelerated each month this year. The year began with over-the-year job growth of 2.9% and each month since, it reduced by one-tenth of a percentage The over-the-year growth now sits at 2.6%.
“The slowdown isn’t hurting the economy,” Knold said. “It is probably just a slowing in population in-migration that accounts for this gradual job growth moderation. The supply of available labor is slowing.”
The private sector employment for April has shown a year-over-year expansion of 2.6%, which translates to a 36,400 job increase. Nine of ten major private-sector industry groups posted net job gains, which were led by leisure and hospitality at 9,400 jobs, professional/business services (6,800), education and health (6,200), and other services with 5,000 jobs.
There was only one sector that had an over-the-year employment contraction, which was financial activities at -1,800 jobs.