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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Less than two years ago, David Muncey was a casualty of the state's faltering technology industry that cost thousands of Utah workers their jobs.
For weeks, Muncey went without a paycheck after the struggling technology company he worked failed to make payroll. His family, with four children ages 2 to 7, took on debt just to cover living expenses and watched its dream of buying a home all but disappear.
Today, sitting in the comfort of their first home in West Jordan, the Munceys look forward to 2004 with a renewed sense of confidence in a Utah economy that is slowly shaking off the effects of the national recession.
"Things were pretty tough for a while," said Muncey, a computer programmer married to a registered nurse. "Now we really appreciate where we are."
The long-term outlook for Utah's economy is improving, economists say.
The state is expected to add 12,000 jobs for an increase of 1 percent this year. That would represent a turnaround after zero job growth last year and a slight decline the year before.
Mark Knold, senior economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services, believes Utah's economy is poised to outpace the nation in 2004, but another economist believes it may take longer for Utah to reclaim its place among the fastest-growing states in the country.
Mark Zandi, chief economist and co-founder of Economy.com, expects Utah initially to lag behind the national economic expansion initially.
One reason is that Utah has a lot of customer-support, financial services back-office and call-center jobs. Employers nationally, in an effort to save money, are beginning to shift those types of positions overseas to countries such as India and the Philippines, Zandi said, resulting in some additional job losses for Utah.
Still, Zandi is bullish on Utah over the long-term, predicting it will outpace the national economy over the next decade.
Economists say one strong sign that Utah's economy is improving is the pace of new-home construction, which remained strong even during the recession.
Buoyed by low interest rates, home construction last year hit levels not seen in more than two decades, and another strong building year is expected.
Across Utah, single-family home permits topped 16,000 in 2003 or "nothing short of spectacular," said Jim Wood, interim director of the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, which analyzes home building in the state.
Low interest rates made homeowners of many young families who otherwise would have had to remained renters. And the low rates enabled families that would have had to buy starter homes to purchase larger, more expensive properties.
For example, with his family's finances bolstered by two steady incomes, Muncey and his wife Lynley landed a 30-year mortgage at 5.87 percent.
"There's no way we could have afforded this home had interest rates been say 7 or 8 percent," Muncey said. "We could have afforded something, but not something this nice."
The demand for homes could be fueled by Californians once again fleeing that state's troubled economy for Utah, said Jeff Thredgold, economic consultant to Zions First National Bank.
Utah saw an influx of Californians in the 1990s. They brought cash, businesses and skills, creating jobs, new companies and buying homes, which made Utah one of the country's hottest real estate markets.
"When it comes to California (and Utah), it is going to be deja vu all over again," Thredgold said.
(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
