Utah's unemployment rate held steady in April at 5.2 percent, according to numbers released Thursday by the state's Department of Workforce Services.

But the state is not finished shedding jobs, and it will likely be several months before job losses hit bottom and things turn around, according to Mark Knold, chief economist with DWS.

"In fall or early winter, it should stabilize and stop going down," he said, noting that does not mean the numbers will immediately begin a meteoric climb. "They're still going to be down, but we want it to stop going from 2.7 to 3.2 to 3.8 to 4.5… ."

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' figures show Utah's nonfarm wage and salaried job count in April shrank by 3.2 percent year over year. About 39,800 jobs have been removed from the state's economy, leaving Utah with slightly more than 1.2 million employed residents.

Roughly 71,000 Utahns were considered unemployed in April, compared to 45,700 a year ago.

In the near term, Knold predicted Utah will lose as many as 50,000 jobs for the year before the hemorrhaging stops. But he noted that that many jobs were added to the state's economy in 2005 and 2006.

Still, "we've never seen this job loss in a single year" outside of wartime, he said. Right after World War II and the Korean War, defense employment was scaled way back. Outside of that, this is the worst string of job losses since they started keeping records back in 1939, he said.

The good news is, "we're not in free fall any more," Knold said. "Spinning out of control with no pilot at the wheel is what it felt like." He said federal stimulus efforts and brighter economic indicators in several sectors have calmed that feeling somewhat. "We're feeling a stopping point to it."

March's unemployment contraction rate was revised, from the 2.6 percent initially reported last month to 2.7 percent.

E-mail: lois@desnews.com