The Utah Department of Workforce Services released its monthly jobs report Friday morning.
She told a common story across the country: unemployment is low and it is difficult for companies to find suitable candidates for job openings.
But the report does show some changes on the horizon. Department of Workforce Services chief economist Mark Nolde said the state added 44,100 new nonfarm jobs last year.
“The workforce in the country is still finding a large number of workers,” he said.
This could mean that companies fill open slots, slowly but surely.
“We’re seeing the job openings rate drop from the COVID-era peak a year ago,” Nolde said. The rate of job openings remains higher than anything we experienced before the pandemic. The jobs available are still plentiful.”
Of particular importance to ski tourism, Utah’s leisure and hospitality services added the second largest number of jobs over the past 12 months, after education and health services.
There were 7,500 more leisure and hospitality employees statewide in March compared to March 2024, an increase of nearly 5%.
Summit County has seen an overall job increase of about 7% over the past year, adding 2,216 jobs.
Wasatch County numbers held steady with 428 jobs added, although this is still up 3.8% from last March.
The unemployment rate in Utah for March 2023 was 2.4%, a full point below the national rate of 3.5%.