April 24, 2006
Contact: Curt Stewart 801.526.4315
Salt Lake City – The approximately 20,000 new Utah college
graduates will be entering one of the best Utah job markets in recent years.
Strong job growth, low unemployment, and increased recruiting activity combine
to offer improved opportunities for all new graduates – especially for
those with specific skills in demand.
The Department of Workforce Services (DWS) projects that the fields with the
most openings for applicants with bachelor’s degrees are school teachers
– both elementary and secondary; accountants and auditors; computer programmers
and systems analysts; insurance sales agents, and loan officers. Another DWS
study identified employers’ hardest-to-fill jobs as medical lab technicians,
industrial engineers, civil engineers and registered nurses.
Utah’s current job growth rate of 4.3 percent far outpaces the U.S. average
of 1.6 percent. The robust job growth coupled with our 3.4 percent unemployment
rate is roughly the same as during the strong economy of the late 90’s.
This results in more jobs being created and fewer experienced workers looking
for jobs. Those conditions favor new graduates.
The entire report can be seen on the department’s Web site at http://jobs.utah.gov/opencms/wi.
For more information, please contact Mark Knold, the department’s senior
economist at 801-526-9458.
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