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Utah Job Numbers Jump 3.9% in December Compared to 2013

Utah Department of Workforce Services, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
County by county chart of job growth/decline for December 2014 compared with the same month in 2013.

December employment numbers for Utah came out Friday. The Department of Workforce Services reports non-farm employment for the last month of 2014 grew by an estimated 3.9%.

All ten of the standard private sector industry groups posted net job increases in December compared to last year.  Carrie Mayne is the Chief Economist at the DWS. She says the unemployment numbers also went the right direction.

“We crossed a milestone in December in that we have now fewer than 50,000 people looking for work,” says Mayne.

She says even though the unemployment rate only had a small drop to 3.5%, it’s an indicator that more jobs are available.

“There should continue to be job growth. There’s no signs that we would be slowing in any way or any increase in the unemployment rate,” says Mayne.

A more mild winter kept construction workers busy with 10,000 new jobs added to the industry. Mayne says builders also saw the fastest employment growth last month at 13.5% more workers compared to 2013.

Bob Nelson is a graduate of the University of Utah with a BA in mass communications. He began his radio career at KUER in 1978 when it was still in Kingsbury Hall. That’s also where he met his wife, Maria Shilaos, in 1981. Bob left KUER for commercial radio where he worked for 25 years, and he is thrilled to be back at KUER. Bob and his family are part of an explorer group, fondly known as The Hordes and Masses, which has been seeking out ghost towns and little-known places in Utah for more than twenty years.
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