82,500 Utahns remain unemployed

Utah's unemployment rate stayed at 6 percent in August, according to a new jobs report, and a state economist believes unemployment has almost hit bottom.

That means a rebound may be around the corner, said Mark Knold, senior economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

"Is there a real strong rebound on the other side? No, there isn't," Knold said. "But from what we've been seeing for the last 18, 19 months or so, we've been looking for this bottom, and the numbers do seem to be indicating if we're not there right now, then we're real close to it."

The reasons why Knold believes unemployment is close to bottoming out is because the rate in August in Utah was unchanged from the July rate of 6 percent. Also, there are some jobs being added to the economy.

"We're seeing some small indications of job hiring starting to pick back up," Knold said. "Now, that's got to pick up to a much higher level to offset the job losses that are still going on."

August's rate, announced Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is not seasonally adjusted and compares with a national unemployment rate of 9.7 percent.

Utah's rate is up from 3.4 percent in August 2008.

About 82,500 Utahns were considered unemployed last month, compared with 47,600 a year ago.

In addition to unemployment, the government looks at job creation, which currently is negative. Utah's nonfarm wage and salaried job count last month shrank by 4.4 percent from a year earlier. About 55,400 jobs have been lost in the state's economy during the past year. The state has nearly 1.2 million people employed.

The only industries adding jobs in Utah are education, health care and government. However, overall job growth still remains negative because of large job losses across other industries.

The construction industry has been most severely hit, with about 16,100 jobs lost in the past year and about 31,700 jobs lost since the beginning of the recession. Most of the construction-job losses have been in the homebuilding industry, but other areas such as commercial and heavy construction have been hit since the beginning of this year, Knold said.

"Construction was the tipping point, the initial starting point of this whole downturn and has really been the industry that has taken it on the chin the most," Knold said. "You're looking at a two-year slide in this industry, whereas most others, you're looking at a one-year slide."

Since the construction season is winding down in preparation for winter, that industry will not begin to turn around until the springtime, Knold said.

About 12,800 jobs in manufacturing have been lost in the past year. Manufacturers of durable goods — products with a shelf life of three years or more — cut 10,300 jobs. Nondurable-goods manufacturers have lost only 2,500 jobs, but that's because food production is a bulk of that segment, and it is less vulnerable to economic ebbs and flows, Knold said.

e-mail: lhancock@desnews.com

Twitter: laurahancock