While Utah’s overall employment level continued to grow in 2016, the number of jobs in energy-producing counties continued to fall, according to statistics released by the State Department of Workforce Services. Carbon, Duchesne, Emery and Uintah Counties all experienced a decline in employment from December 2015 to December of 2016.
Utah’s nonfarm payroll employment for December 2016 grew by an estimated 2.8 percent, adding 40,000 jobs since December 2015. But Chief Economist at the Department of Workforce Services Carrie Mayne said, “Once all the data benchmarking has been completed, the state will likely record an annual average job growth rate of more than 3.5 percent for 2016.”
Utah’s current employment level registers 1,447,900. The unemployment rate in Utah in December of 2016 was 3.1 percent. The national unemployment rate increased one-tenth of a percentage point from the previous month to 4.7 percent.
Eight of ten private sector industry groups in Utah posted net job increases in December as compared to the year before, while the Natural Resources and Mining industry decreased by 900 positions.
Workforce Services reports Uintah County lost an estimated 778 jobs from December 2015 to December 2016. The number of jobs in Carbon County decreased by 392 for the period, while Duchesne County employment dropped by 320 jobs, and Emery County lost 98 jobs.
Coal-related job losses
In terms of unemployment rates, 8.7 percent of the workforce in Uintah County was unemployed in December 2016. The unemployment rate in Duchesne County was 8.2 percent. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in Carbon County for December 2016 was 5.7 percent, and in Emery County the rate was 5.6 percent.
According to the DWS county-by-county Economic Snapshot, quarterly job losses have accelerated in Carbon County. A downturn in coal related industries is ultimately responsible for the majority of job losses. The losses were mainly due to layoffs in the trucking industry by firms that haul coal. Transportation sector losses were only partially offset by gains in publicly funded sectors, particularly in education. Growth in sales tax revenue was negative but skewed by refunds to major taxpayers.