Across the United States, jobs are quantified through each
state’s unemployment insurance program. Those programs provide the potential
for laid-off workers to receive unemployment benefits — the goal being to
bridge the gap between workers’ lost jobs and their next jobs. An eligible
recipient’s weekly benefit amount is based upon their earnings from recent
work. This begs the question, how does Utah’s unemployment insurance program
know how much an individual recently earned while working?
That answer is supplied by all businesses that hire workers,
as they must report their employees and pay as mandated by the unemployment
insurance laws. Companies identify their individual workers and those workers’
monetary earnings for a calendar quarter. As businesses are identified by their
industrial activity and geographic location, it is through the unemployment
insurance program that aggregate employment counts by industry and location are
calculated.
Yet each state’s profiling of individuals is quite minimal
in the unemployment insurance program. The U.S. Census Bureau can bring more
light to the overall labor force by supplementing said information with gender,
age, race/ethnicity and educational attainment (imputed from American Community
Survey responses) for Utah’s labor force.
The Census Bureau packages this information through their
Local Employment Dynamics program and makes available said data on its website. Here at the Department of
Workforce Services, we recently downloaded and packaged Utah-specific data from
said website and summarized it in the attached visualization.
Various data “tabs” are available, presenting Utah’s economy
from different angles, ranging from industry shares within the economy to the
age-group distributions of the labor force, to gender and race distributions.
These labor variables can be viewed for the state as a whole, or by each
individual county.
Some statewide highlights:
Industry — industrial distribution is quite diverse, which
provides strength within the economy. Distributions do fluctuate with time,
with manufacturing seeing its share lessen while health care and professional
and business services shares have increased.
Age — the bulk of Utah’s labor force is composed of 25- to
44-year-olds. Older worker shares have increased over the past 15 years, yet
still remain a non-dominant portion of Utah’s labor force. The youngest
segments of the labor force declined noticeably during the Great Recession due
to less participation, and that trend remains.
Educational Attainment — turnover rates are understandably
highest with workers under the age of 25 as they strive to build their
educational foundation and also find their niche in the labor market. A trend
does stand out where the more education that a worker attains, the lower the
turnover rate businesses experience from said educational classes.
Race/Ethnicity — Whites account for around 80 percent of
Utah’s labor force. The Asian community is small but slowly increasing in
share, and is also characterized with the lowest turnover rate and the highest
new-hire wages.
Gender — males comprise about 55 percent of Utah’s labor
force. The female share of 45 percent is higher than the national average.
Roughly 35 percent of working females work part-time compared to 15 percent for
males. Therefore, female new-hire wages are considerably lower than male
new-hire wages. (Note: employer reporting into the unemployment insurance system
is not hourly wage rate reporting but instead total calendar quarter wages
paid. Therefore, calculations can only be made upon total quarterly wages, and
part-time employment weakens this measure).
As for the various counties in the Mountainland region, here
are some labor highlights:
Utah County:
- The two largest industries in Utah County are retail and professional/business services. These two industries account for nearly a third of all jobs in Utah County.
- Within professional/business services, 43 percent, or 7,050 of the jobs are in the computer systems design and related services industry. As a part of the “Silicon Slopes” tech boom, this industry has grown 41 percent from 2012 to 2016.
- The other major tech industry, software publishing, grew by 53 percent in the same time frame.
- Turnover rates fell significantly in the last recession as job opportunities dried up and employees remained with their companies. Conversely, turnover rates have been on a steady tread upward in the last few years as workers have seized new job opportunities.
Summit County:
- The largest industry group by employment in Summit County is leisure/hospitality services (41 percent). Of these nearly 12,500 jobs, 8,100 are in traveler accommodation and recreation industries; numbers which reflect the strength of the ski industry in the county.
- While 50 percent of Summit County residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 22 percent with the same level of education are in the local work force. This disparity is largely the result of commuting patterns in the area, with many college-educated workers traveling to the Salt Lake area for work.
Wasatch County:
- The largest industry group by employment in Wasatch County is leisure/hospitality services (18 percent). While it has consistently been the largest, its share of employment has declined recently as professional/business services and retail/wholesale trade have grown.
- The average monthly wage for new hires has risen 19 percent over the last two years. This can be attributed to the strong job growth and low unemployment in that time.
Juab County:
- The largest industry by employment in Juab County is manufacturing (18 percent). While it has had a significant share historically, the years following the recession have further established the industry in the county.
- When looking at share by industry, several increases in construction stand out. The primary driver of these expansions was the multi-phase construction of the Currant Creek natural gas plant in Mona, Utah.
