Utah leads economic recovery

SALT LAKE CITY — The impact of the Great Recession notwithstanding, the Intermountain West region’s metro areas outperformed its national peers on measures of recovery, according to a report from the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C.

Four metros — Denver, Colorado Springs, Salt Lake City, and Ogden — have experienced some of the swiftest recoveries in the nation, the report states.

On the jobs front, the unemployment situation in the Intermountain West worsened dramatically over the year to December 2010, although overall rates of unemployment remain below national and large-metro averages. Among Utah metros, jobless rates remained low in Salt Lake, Ogden and Provo.

In a sign that the employment forecast may be improving, seven out of 10 metros added jobs in the fourth quarter. Six metros — Denver, Ogden, Phoenix, Provo, Salt Lake and Tucson — beat the national rate of job creation.

While no Intermountain West metro fully recouped jobs lost during the recession, Ogden, Denver, Colorado Springs, and Albuquerque performed slightly better than the top 100 metros as a group.

Every metro in the region boosted output in the last quarter of 2010, consolidating a year of consecutive quarterly gains in most places. Robust growth of 1.5 to 1.7 percent lifted the metros of Utah’s Wasatch Front last quarter.

Meanwhile, sluggish housing markets continue to slow the region’s recovery. Prices in eight of the region’s 10 metros have yet to find a floor. Housing prices now languish at levels at least one-fifth below their peaks in Salt Lake City, Provo, Tucson, Boise, Phoenix and Las Vegas.