SALT LAKE CITY (April 21, 2023)  — Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for March 2023 increased an estimated 2.7% across the past 12 months, with the state’s economy adding a cumulative 44,100 jobs since March 2022. Utah’s current job count stands at 1,705,400.

March’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate is estimated at 2.4%. Approximately 41,700 Utahns are unemployed. Utah’s February unemployment rate is unrevised at 2.4%. The March national unemployment rate moved down one notch to 3.5%. More...

By Gwen Kervin, Regional Economist

The labor force participation rate in the United States is lower now than before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted labor markets in early 2020. However, the country's labor force participation rate has been declining for the past two decades, mainly due to demographic shifts. Although COVID-19 initially affected labor force participation in both Utah and the United States, Utah's labor force participation rate has fully recovered, hovering around 68.5% by the end of 2022, compared to 68.3% in January 2020. The labor force participation rate in the United States was 62.3% at the end of 2022, down from 63.3% in January 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. More...