Utah jobless rate at 6.5%

With a child in each arm and one on the way, Alex Moore says she'll work any kind of job.

After losing her catering job last week, Moore, who lives in Salt Lake City, has applied for a dozen jobs. Her strategy has been focusing on seasonal retail positions that have opened for the holidays.

"I hope to get on at Walmart or Target and stay on after Christmas," she said.

Moore's situation is emblematic of some 88,900 Utahns who were considered unemployed in October. Unemployment is defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as people who are jobless and are looking for jobs.

On Thursday, the Utah Department of Workforce Services announced that 88,900 unemployed amounts to a 6.5 percent unemployment rate, up 0.3 percentage point from September and nearly double October 2008's 3.5 percent jobless rate.

The other economic indicator of the labor market is the number of jobs added to the economy each month, and in Utah, about 40,900 jobs have been shed from the economy in October of this year compared to October of last year — a 3.3 percent decrease. About 1.2 million people are salaried and employed.

However, October's number is an improvement from a month before. In September, the number of jobs lost was 4 percent.

The last recession in which Utah logged a high unemployment rate was in the early 1980s. In March 1983, it was 9.7 percent.

Utah is faring better than the U.S. average. Nationally, the average unemployment was 10.2 percent in October — the highest rate in 26 years — and 4.2 percent of jobs had been lost over the past year.

"Although most other industries remain with job losses, their losses are tempering," the department said in a release with the figures. "Not so with leisure and hospitality. Its loss percentage continues to increase. A strong start to Utah's ski season would be a welcome boost for this industry."

Moore, who hopes to land a job paying about $9 an hour, recently applied for a register job at a local grocery store and learned that the hiring supervisor had received 35 applications.

"You've got everybody looking for the same job and you're either overqualified or under-qualified," she said.

Landon Pugmire of Salt Lake City is encountering a similar situation when he applies for jobs as a route delivery driver.

"People who get driver positions are those who have 10-plus years of experience," said Pugmire, who has three-and-a-half years of driving experience.

Low wages are frustrating to Salt Lake resident Brad Callahan, who has a daughter to support and is looking for a job in food services after getting laid off earlier this week.

"If I don't get something next week, I'll do day labor," he said. "You're lucky to get seven bucks an hour. I can't feed a kid on that, but it's something."

e-mail: lhancock@desnews.com