Unemployment rates steady in Utah County through March
Isaac Hale, Daily Herald file photo
The Utah Department of Workforce Services’ Administrative Offices are pictured on Thursday, March 26, 2020, in Salt Lake City.Utah County maintained a 2.3% unemployment rate in March, still below the state’s rate of 2.4% and steady from January and February of this year. It is still above the March 2022 unemployment of 1.7%, though that month featured the valley’s lowest unemployment rate since at least 1995, the earliest available data.
The state estimates there are 307,221 non-farm jobs occupied in the county, an increase of about 1,400 from February and part of a steady month-over-month increase.
In the wider Provo-Orem metropolitan area, Utah and Juab counties, the industries with the largest employment increase were retail trade and educational/health services (both up about 400 jobs) while the largest decrease was seen in local government employment (about 300).
According to the Utah Department of Workforce Services, 44,100 jobs have been added across the state in the last calendar year while 41,700 Utahns are currently unemployed.
“Layoffs remain low, and finding adequate labor to fill open jobs remains a challenge. In spite of this challenge, the state’s labor force continues to find a supply of workers,” Mark Knold, chief economist for DWS, said in a press release. “The rate of job openings is still higher than anything seen before the pandemic. Available jobs are still plentiful.”
A WalletHub ranking, using U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, has Utah as the 46th state where employers struggle to hire, with a “job opening rate” of 5.4%
