Utah jobless rate up, but outlook better

SALT LAKE CITY — The unemployment rate in Utah rose slightly over the last year, but economists say the outlook seems to be improving.

"I think we've turned a corner and can actually say we're starting to add jobs back into the economy again," said Mark Knold, senior economist for the state Department of Workforce Services.

Approximately 7,100 jobs have been lost in Utah since April 2009, lowering the total number of people with jobs in Utah to 1,187,100, according to the monthly employment summary released Thursday by the department.

The state's unemployment rate had a 0.6 percentage-point increase during the past 12 months, rising from 6.7 percent in April 2009 to 7.3 percent last month. The April rate this year was up from 7.2 percent in March. Nationally, the jobless rate rose from 9.7 percent in March to 9.9 percent in April.

"We anticipate the unemployment rate will go higher before it peaks out and starts to go back down," Knold said.

Some people who were looking for jobs had become discouraged as the recession dragged on and stopped looking for work, so they were not counted as unemployed in the survey.

"The unemployment rate rising is an indication that some people are starting to get the impression that things are getting better, and they are starting to look for a job again," Knold said.

According to the department, employment rates are rising in several industry groups, setting the stage for them to recover.

A lot of the job growth is in temporary jobs, both full-time and part-time, but according to the department this is typical of the beginning stages of an economic recovery.

There also has been employment growth in manufacturing, with a nearly 1,000-job increase.

And indicators suggest that the worst days are behind the construction sector. The rate of decrease in available jobs in the industry halved in just one month, from -10.2 percent last month to -5.1 percent this month.

Education services provided by the private sector have added 2,100 positions to meet the demand of unemployed workers using their spare time to go to school and further their skills — a silver lining of an economic recession.

Health care still holds Utah's strongest employment growth, with 5,400 new jobs added over the past year.

e-mail: ebassett@desnews.com