Utah unemployment falls again, rests at 2% for March 2022

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah unemployment rate dropped a percentage point to 2.0% in March 2022.

Department of Workforce Services Deputy Director Nate McDonald told KSL NewsRadio that the low unemployment rate mirrors job growth in Utah. Only one job sector isn’t experiencing the strong bounceback from COVID-19 restrictions. 

“It’s the professional and business services sector … that industry has some of the help supply services and telemarketing, collection agencies,” McDonald said.

“They rely on that excess labor in a lot of ways … and right now there’s just not that excess labor.”

The latest report shows that there are still more than 33,000 Utahns who are unemployed, which keeps Utah’s unemployment rate at 2.1%.  The March national unemployment rate is currently 3.6%.

“It is what we like to call a job seeker’s market,” McDonald said. “There are opportunities, and so we want to encourage anyone that is sitting on the sidelines, whether it’s from the pandemic or changes in their lives have made it so they haven’t been able to get out there and be part of the labor force, we’re encouraging them to take advantage of the opportunities right now.

“There may be opportunities you weren’t thinking of that you haven’t tested out before because you didn’t think you had a shot. 

“And you might have a shot now,” McDonald said.

The job sectors that have grown the most in the last year include Trade, Transportation, Utilities, Leisure and Hospitality, and Construction.

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