Their loss is Utah's gain.

While states and regions around the country are reporting bursting housing bubbles and slowing job growth, Utah's economy remains strong, according to a report released Tuesday by the state's Department of Workforce Services.

"Intuition would imply that Utah would benefit from a stronger United States economy — the thinking that a rising sea lifts all ships," the department's senior economist, Mark Knold, wrote in the report. "But currently Utah is actually in a better position from a weaker United States economy than if the greater United States economy would find more solid footing and grow at a faster pace, employing more workers."

Utah's jobless rate, 2.5 percent in April, benefits from the excess labor that a suffering larger economy provides, Knold wrote. Workers likely would stay where they were, instead of heeding Utah's call for labor. And the state's employment growth, 4.5 percent last month, would slow.

Instead, Knold said, "Our 4.5 percent employment growth (rate) leads the nation." high

"It's not like we sprinted past Nevada and Arizona. It's like we stood still and watched them slip past us, going downward," Knold said. "They're more vulnerable to the national problem that's going on right now, which is the housing bust."

Utah didn't add much air to the current bubble, Knold said. Not much Utah money went into the speculative housing market — people shifting money from stocks to real estate as a way to make a profit. And the growth the Utah market is seeing now, he said, has more to do with demographics than making a buck.

"This spike that we're seeing here in the last three to four years in Utah's residential construction, there's not much speculation in it," he said. "It's really an actual demographic thing. It has solid foundational footing. It's not something that's producing a vacuum that's going to collapse like we've seen on a national basis.

"I feel pretty good about Utah's overall housing market in relation to — or contrasted against — the national housing market."

All but one of the 11 job categories measured by the department reported year-over growth. Construction led the way, adding 14,000 jobs, followed by the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which brought on 9,500 new workers over the past 12 months.

Only the information sector went into the red, losing 200 jobs. Knold attributed this more to a redistribution of jobs than to a loss.

"On paper, that's really an accounting change, and not so much a reality change," he said. When AOL sold its Ogden call center to Teleperformance USA last year, its 400 jobs were shifted from the information sector to the professional and business services category, which added 9,100 jobs during the year-over period.

Looking ahead, Knold said the construction industry should continue in its lead position for at least the next few years, even as the industry shifts from residential to commercial construction.

All told, Knold said he likes what he sees.

"We're in a growth spurt. We're riding a high wave right now in the state of Utah," he said. "It's very difficult to see anything to be worried about on the horizon, at least the short-term, immediate horizon."

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E-mail: jnii@desnews.com