Utah also is getting help from at least one other state. Michael Sullivan, communications director for GOED, said Idaho officials are distributing information about Utah's needs to several hundred former employees of Micron Technology in Boise who recently lost their jobs.

"They are distributing, for us, to all the unemployed Micron engineers, with a cover letter from their department, saying, 'While we'd like to keep you in Idaho, we understand that if you haven't found an engineering job, we'd like to keep you in the West,"' Sullivan said.

Caras said another company in a neighboring state is planning layoffs — he declined to name the company or the state — but said GOED hopes to contact that state's workforce officials "and see if we can repeat the same type of thing and keep people in the West."

Caras said the GOED Board has been good at recruiting companies to come to Utah, "and we hope to do the same thing with people."

A few board members questioned the approach, saying they are worried about GOED getting into the jobs-listing business, but others said the initiative is a first step of what will become a refined program with cooperation from the Department of Workforce Services.

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E-mail: bwallace@desnews.com