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Jobless rate: All-time low
The Salt Lake Tribune published an excellent article on Utah’s current record-low unemployment rate:
State’s extra-tight employment market makes businesses scramble to find skilled, experienced staff
By Bob Mims
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:11/15/2006 01:19:14 AM MST
Joblessness in Utah is at a record-low 2.5 percent, statistically equating to full employment for the state.
For workers, these are the best of times. For some employers, the job-rich, worker-poor market is an invitation to empty the aspirin bottle.
“It is a huge issue for us,” acknowledged Fred Lampropoulos, founder and CEO of Merit Medical Systems Inc. “In fact, the single most pressing issue in our business is to retain and attract talent.”
The South Jordan medical-device maker is in the midst of an expansion of its facilities and work force, having added 400 people to its staff of 1,710 in the past two years.
“We’re looking for another 50 to 100, and I tell you, it’s tough,” Lampropoulos said.
Such are the vagaries of full employment.
”Ultimate ‘full employment’ would be everyone working, but that never really happens. This is as close as you get,” said Mark Knold, senior economist for Utah Workforce Services.
In October, there were just 33,000 Utahns officially unemployed, compared with 54,100 in October 2005, when the jobless rate was 4.2 percent. Last month’s rate also was three-tenths of a percent lower than September’s 2.8 percent.
Nationally, unemployment hovered at 4.4 percent in October.
Merit Medical has plenty of company when it comes to wrestling with Utah’s employment puzzle.
Randy Price, human resources chief at Big-D Construction, greeted the latest jobless figures with mixed emotions. It’s always good to see the state’s carpenters, pipefitters, electricians and other trades taking home paychecks - but the pickings for new projects could soon get slim.
“This really impacts construction, particularly the skilled trades. It’s already become very difficult to find individuals with craft skills,” Price said.
“Right now, we’re in pretty good shape,” he added, noting Big-D has 500 on its payroll. “But as work and jobs come and go, we are going to need more talent.”
The construction industry has been the top producer of new Utah jobs over the past 12 months, creating 14,800 positions. That growth is expected to remain steady in 2007 as work ramps up on the LDS Church’s $1 billion redevelopment of downtown Salt Lake City.
Still, Jeff Thredgold, a consultant to Zions Bank, sounds a warning that the state’s anemic labor pool is unlikely to recover anytime soon.
“This is an incredibly low unemployment rate, and incredibly tight” job market, he said. “The biggest challenge in the region now is where to find people to hire.”
Thredgold said Utah’s 5 percent job growth rate, three times the national average, for a second straight year overwhelmed the heavy influx of out-of-state workers. In short, jobs are being created more quickly than people are moving into Utah to fill them.
Knold thinks it is time to “start thinking outside the box in terms of what this economy can do. When you look at history, you say the unemployment rate just can’t go below 3 [percent] because it never has before” except for July 1997, when it hit 2.9 percent. “But now, it has . . . and there could be pressure that starves the future growth of the economy by not having enough workers.”
For now, Kevin Cornwell, president and CEO of Utah Medical Products Inc. in Midvale, has not seen a direct effect from the tight labor market. Employee loyalty, coupled with what he says are comparatively good pay and benefits for his industry, have kept the company’s work force stable at a little more than 200.
But openings do occur, and Cornwell says he has seen the labor pool drain reflected in the rsums that cross his desk daily.
“They seem to be from people at the lower end of the [experience] scale,” he said. But the labor shortage “could be an opportunity for those who are less qualified to move up.”
bmims@sltrib.com
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