SALT LAKE CITY — Utah’s economy seems to be booming with more job growth and historically low unemployment rates.
Utah has just hit its lowest unemployment rate ever recorded at 2.3 percent, which is good news for people looking for work.
Mark Knold, the Chief Economist at the Utah Department of Workforce Services says these numbers are a sign of a good economy.
“The economy has been going very strong it’s very vibrant it’s been doing it for a while it’s absorbing as much labor as is available to come and work in the workforce, and again the end result is that we are now at 2.3% unemployment,” says Knold.
This is close to the national unemployment rate which remains at 3.5 percent, which is great news for anyone looking for a job.
“In this environment now we’re seeing all of those stratifications of the skill sets the education levels all coalescing to the lowest unemployment rates and hardly having much of a spread at all between those with master’s degrees in an unemployment rate in those with less than a high school education and a job,” says Knold.
Not only is the unemployment rate low but Utah’s employment rate in December 2019 grew by about 3.3 percent adding more than 50,000 jobs to the economy.
“We’re estimating 20,000 to 30,000 people for the last few years coming in each year from out of state to find work, and so that helps to augment the amount of labor that’s available to the economy and can keep this job growth going at 3.3%,” said Knold.
While this is good news for job seekers, it can make it difficult for businesses to find the right candidate.
And Knold says even though more jobs are available, you still have to put in the work to land one.
“You still have to make yourself presentable, you still have to sell yourself, you still have to convince the employer that if they hire you, you will make money for them, that you are something that will help them grow their business, will be attractive for their business and so on,” said Knold.
Knold says this upward trend with the economy is something that will continue through 2020.
