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SALT LAKE CITY — Utah continued to recover from the economic shock of the pandemic by adding jobs and lowering the unemployment rate in April, according to a new employment report released Friday.
Utah's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 2.8% in April, compared to March's 2.9% jobless rate. The April report accounts for about 46,600 Utah residents who are unemployed.
Nationally, the unemployment rate moved slightly upward for April to 6.1% from 6% in March.
"We have weathered the storm very well," said Mark Knold, the chief economist for Utah's Department of Workforce Services. "We are much ahead of all the rest of the nation in terms of that recovery."
Another sign of Utah's recovery is job growth when compared to the same month in 2019.
Employment in Utah increased an estimated 2.3% over the last two years, adding more than 35,000 jobs, the report states.
"A typical year's worth of Utah employment growth has taken two years to accomplish — commendable given the intervening COVID-19 disruption," Knold said in a prepared statement.
Related:
US job growth slows sharply in sign of hiring struggles
The recovery of America's job market hit a pause last month as many businesses — from restaurants and hotels to factories and construction companies — struggled to find enough workers to catch up with a rapidly strengthening economic rebound.During the same period, the nation has a negative 4% employment change.
"Our job count continued to move upward, at the pace we thought it would, the unemployment rate came down a little bit more," Knold said of the employment report for Utah. "We're just in contrast to the national economy very sharply right now during this whole COVID environment."
Knold said looking back to 2019 is a better indication of how the economy is doing than comparing to 2020 when Utah was in the depth of the pandemic.
The only two private sector industries in Utah that haven't added jobs in the last 24 months are the leisure and hospitality sector and natural resources.
