SALT LAKE CITY (May 6, 2026) — Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for March 2026 increased an estimated 0.6% across the past 12 months, with the state’s economy adding a cumulative 10,400 jobs since March 2025. Utah’s current job count stands at 1,768,300. 

March’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is estimated at 3.8%, the same as February. Approximately 69,700 Utahns are unemployed. The March national unemployment rate is estimated at 4.3%, 0.1% lower than February 2026. More...

SALT LAKE CITY (April. 8, 2026) — Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for January 2026 increased an estimated 0.6% across the past 12 months, with the state’s economy adding a cumulative 10,500 jobs since January 2025. Utah’s current job count stands at 1,755,600. 

January’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is estimated at 3.8%, a 0.1% increase from December. Approximately 69,200 Utahns are unemployed. The January national unemployment rate is estimated at 4.3%, 0.1% lower than December 2025. 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...