Utah's unemployment rate rose a bit in January, to 6.8 percent.
That means 91,500 Utahns were out of work then, up from 77,600 in January 2009. And that reduced the overall number of Utah jobs to 1.17 million, about 35,300 fewer than existed a year earlier.
Despite those numbers , a deeper look at monthly employment data released Tuesday prompted this upbeat assessment from Mark Knold, chief economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services.
"Signs that the worst of the economic downturn are behind Utah continue to emerge," he said. "The worst of the employment slide seems to have found bottom around August 2009, although the job market is still in more of a stabilizing than an expansion mode."
Knold's signs?
First of all, there's continued moderation of the year-over-year rate of job losses. In January, the number of nonfarm wage and salaried jobs in Utah was down 2.9 percent from the same month a year earlier. Although up slightly from 2.8 percent in December, that contraction rate is far below the year-to-year comparisons that reached 4.5 percent last August.
There also are suggestions of re-emerging job creation. Temporary services companies are getting more calls from companies seeking workers. "Help Wanted" postings on Internet sites have risen for several months. Filings for new unemployment insurance claims have declined six straight weeks.
One key sector of Utah's economy continues to show growth. Health care firms have added 7,800 jobs to their payrolls in the past year -- 14,000 since the recession started in late 2007 , Knold noted.
"Health care has long been considered a recession-proof industry," said Jill Vicory, spokeswoman for the Utah Hospitals & Health Systems Association. "That's not totally true, but we've been able to weather the storm better than some industries have."
A couple of other sectors show diminishing losses. The trade sector, retail and wholesale, is one. Professional and business services is another.
Even construction, the state's hardest-hit sector, had numbers reflecting a slightly better situation. Between the Januarys of 2009 and '10, Utah had 11,100 fewer construction jobs. Not good, but better than the differential of 12,200 between the Decembers of '08 and '09.
"What [Knold] is saying tracks with what our national economists have been saying," said Richard Thorne, executive director of the Associated General Contractors of Utah. "We're in a depression more than a recession. I just hope [Knold's] recovery happens sooner rather than later."
Although the scenario seems contradictory, Knold said it's not unusual for unemployment numbers to rise, while employment conditions improve. That's what happening, with January's 6.8 percent reading up from December's rate, which was revised down to 6.6 percent after initially being pegged at 6.7 percent. (The U.S. rate is 9.7 percent).
"Idled workers, sensing the environment may be beginning to improve, start to trickle back into the job-search arena," he said. "Until they find a job, they actually push up the unemployment rate."
Contradictions go both ways, too.
Vicory noted that although health care employment is up, "our sector also has seen significant reductions in the number of procedures and patient volume over the past couple of years."
That's not good for revenue. On the other hand, Vicory said, anxiety about the tight job market has resulted "in a reduction of employee turnover.
"People are staying in their jobs. We see a lot of employees who want to pick up additional hours or go full time after being part time," she added. "Turnover is always costly for employers when they have to go out and hire new people."
