Employment in Utah grew for January by an estimated 4.1%, adding 53,600 nonfarm payroll jobs compared to January 2014.
Carrie Mayne is Chief Economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
“What’s notable this month is that we see job growth at 4.1% over last year and we haven’t been above 4 percent for over seven and a half years,” says Mayne.
She says unemployment numbers dropped 0.2 from last month as Utahns who lost their jobs during the recession continue to make their way back into the labor market. She says it’s an ideal situation for wages to go up.
“With the labor market in such good condition that that will start to put some better pressure on the wage indicators and we’ll start to see wages go up eventually,” Mayne says, “It’s just a little slow coming.”
Mayne points to job growth in nine of the ten private sector industry groups including construction, and financial activities.
“And that includes real estate and rental as well and we know that those are hot markets.”
Mayne says jobs in natural resources and mining saw no job growth over the year and she says that’s a negative impact of lower prices at the gas pump.
