Jobless numbers come from insurance data

Mark Knold, senior economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services, said the foundation of how it counts jobs is the unemployment insurance system. When people get laid off from a job, they can apply for unemployment benefits. Their eligibility is evaluated in various ways, and past earnings determine their weekly benefit.

"All employers who hire workers need to report into that system," Knold said. Employers provide wage data and information about their hires.

"When these businesses get established in that unemployment system, we identify them — the type of industry they're in and the location (a county location)," he said. "Therefore, when manufacturing firms report to us, it's just a matter of adding up the workers they've reported. Then we compare it to what it was a year ago at this time. And that's how we come up with these growth rates."

The numbers do not include groups like farm jobs, students and nonprofits. Knold estimates that the department captures 90 percent to 93 percent of the employment picture in Utah.