Press Release
April 15, 2022
UTAH’S EMPLOYMENT SUMMARY: March 2022
SALT LAKE CITY (April 15, 2022) — Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for March 2022 increased an estimated 4.0% across the past 12 months, with the state’s economy adding a cumulative 62,900 jobs since March 2021. Utah’s current job count stands at 1,650,800.
March’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate is estimated at 2.0%, with approximately 33,400 Utahns unemployed. February’s unemployment rate remains unrevised at 2.1%. The March national unemployment rate continued to move downward, lowering to 3.6%.
“It is another month to sing the praises of the Utah economy,” said Mark Knold, Chief Economist at the Department of Workforce Services. “Job growth across the past year is quite strong at 4.0%. In response, the unemployment rate took another historical notch downward to 2.0%. All industry sectors save one have added new jobs over the past year. The lone exception is the professional and business services sector. That area includes help supply services, telemarking, collection agencies, etc. With unemployment rock bottom at 2.0%, excess labor is virtually non-existent, so this industry’s inability to supply the market with idled workers or to attract labor for its own needs is not a surprise.”
Utah’s March private sector employment recorded a year-over-year expansion of 4.4%. Nine of Utah’s 10 major private-sector industry groups posted net year-over-year job gains, led by Trade, Transportation, Utilities (16,100 jobs); Leisure & Hospitality (13,600 jobs); Construction (7,100 jobs); and Education and Health Services (6,800 jobs). The only sector to not record any job growth is professional and business services. This sector includes the help supply and temporary workers businesses, which make a living off of excess labor finding stop-gap or temporary help jobs. But with unemployment historically low, there is not much of an excess labor pool to work with.
- Additional analysis and tables at https://jobs.utah.gov/wi/
update/index.html - County unemployment rates for March will post on or shortly after April 18, 2022, at https://jobs.utah.gov/wi/
update/une/season.pdf - April’s employment information will be released at 7 a.m. on Friday, May 20, 2022.
Statistics generated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D.C., modeled from monthly employer (employment) and household (unemployment) surveys.
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Listen to Chief Economist Mark Knold shares his analysis of the March 2022 employment report: https://soundcloud.com/