Utah Job Growth Tops Nation, Economy Is Very Strong

Utah's major newspapers report stronger than expected job growth in July - keeping the state's economy strong. Our state continually ranks high for lifestyle and business environment.

Here are excerpts from the Salt Lake Tribune article:

Utah's stellar rate of job creation, which should have slowed down by now, crept up again in July.

Utah created 56,800 jobs in the year that ended in July, for an employment growth rate of 4.7 percent, up from 4.5 percent for the year that ended in June, the Utah Department of Workforce Services reported.

Arizona is a distant second to Utah, with job growth of 3.2 percent. The national average? A paltry 1.3 percent, by comparison, down from 1.4 percent in June.

"Utah continues to have a really, really strong economy," Mark Knold, chief economist for Workforce Services, said Tuesday. "What impresses me is that our job growth is staying so high. Utah just doesn't seem vulnerable to the things that are affecting other parts of the country right now."

And here are some from the Deseret Morning News:

It may sound like a broken record, but Utah's job growth nonetheless is topping the charts.

The state's nonfarm job growth in July was 4.7 percent when compared with a year ago, and the 56,800 jobs added during that period is the best among all states, according to figures released Tuesday by the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

"I would characterize this as more of the same," said Mark Knold, chief economist for the department. "We've been sounding like a broken record this entire year in terms of the high job growth and a very low unemployment rate. So far, we're just continuing to maintain that kind of trend as we're going through 2007."