There still are tens of thousands of job openings in Utah with employers just waiting for workers to fill them.

A new Job Vacancy Study by the Utah Department of Workforce Services, which was based upon a survey of nearly 3,500 employers conducted during the fourth quarter of last year, indicates there were nearly 35,000 job openings in the metropolitan areas of the Wasatch Front.

There were 3,500 more openings in Washington and Iron counties and another 1,000 openings in the rest of the state.

"It is difficult for employers to fill a lot of those positions because there just aren't enough qualified people," said Nate Talley, an economist with the Department of Workforce Services who looked at job openings in the study area designated "metropolitan Utah."

Among the most difficult jobs to fill in Utah during the fourth quarter were those for welders, industrial engineers, machinists, plumbers, pipe fitters and computer programmers, Talley indicated.

Talley said in the metropolitan region of the state - Salt Lake, Utah, Wasatch, Weber, Summit, Morgan, Davis, Tooele and Juab counties - there were 3.3 vacancies for every 100 jobs during the fourth quarter.

"Unfortunately, it is difficult for those people who work in the sectors where employment is weakening - construction, for example - to easily move into those areas where there is strong job growth, such as health care," Talley said.

Research analyst Joe Bell, who analyzed and reported on the job vacancy data for the "southwest" portion of the study, said there were 4.1 job openings in Iron and Washington counties for every 100 jobs.

And in the Uintah Basin, which for purposes of the study included Daggett, Duchesne and Uintah counties, there were 5.2 openings for every 100 jobs, according to research analyst Christopher Gibbs, who oversaw the data concerning that area of the state.

The Department of Workforce Services presented its findings Friday to the board of directors of the Governor's Office of Economic Development.

Board chairman Ragular Bhaskar said that with many of the positions that are difficult to fill, particularly those that require applicants to have post-secondary education, the short-term solution may be for the state to try to woo qualified people from out of state to fill those openings.

"In other areas though, if we can put an increased emphasis on job training, we may be able to quickly address the problem," he said, noting that "while 70 something percent of the jobs do not require a college degree, they definitely require job training."

steve@sltrib.com