SALT LAKE CITY (Dec. 5, 2025) — Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for September 2025 increased an estimated 1.5% across the past 12 months, with the state’s economy adding a cumulative 26,700 jobs since September 2024. Utah’s current job count stands at 1,783,000.
September’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is estimated at 3.4%. Approximately 63,500 Utahns are unemployed. Utah’s August unemployment rate is unrevised at 3.3%. The September national unemployment rate is up a tenth of a percentage point at 4.4%. More...
Michael Jeanfreau, Senior Economist
The constant churn of business formation and closure is a normal feature of a healthy economy. New businesses open, others shut down, and the competitive process reallocates resources to their most productive uses. Startups introduce new products, services, and innovations. If they operate efficiently and meet market demand, they survive and grow. If not, they eventually give way to firms that are better positioned to serve customers and allocate resources. This filtering process is one of the primary ways economic efficiency improves over time.
Business Employment Dynamics (BED) data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks when businesses start, how long they survive, and how they grow. BED data measures business activity at the establishment level, where an establishment refers to a single physical location at which business operations occur. Some establishments are part of multi-location firms, while others are stand-alone operations. In this dataset, a new establishment is any business location that did not exist in the previous quarter, whether it belongs to a newly formed firm or is a new location for an existing company. More...
By Gwen Kervin, Senior Economist
The Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (GOEO) has identified five strategic industries to help strengthen and diversify Utah’s economy:
Advanced manufacturing
Aerospace and defense
Financial services
Life sciences and healthcare
Software and information technology
Each of these industries directly support skilled, high-paying jobs in the state. In 2024, the targeted industries employed nearly 494,900 people and paid $41.4 billion in wages. This amounts to an average annual wage of $83,713 compared to average wages of $58,059 for other industries. Aside from their direct impact, these targeted industries have ripple effects across the economy, supporting local employers in other industries and encouraging the growth of new businesses. As businesses grow, they require various inputs from suppliers, spurring further economic expansion and creating a virtuous cycle of growth. More...