This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah's construction industry had the lowest unemployment rate among builders across the country in February, according to an analysis of federal statistics released Wednesday by the Associated Builders and Contractors.
Only 5.3 percent of construction workers in the Beehive state were out of work, enabling it to slide into the top spot ahead of Colorado (5.8 percent jobless rate) and Idaho and Hawaii (tied at 5.9 percent).
Utah had the fourth fewest unemployed construction workers in January (6.5 percent), trailing Hawaii (6.0 percent) and Virginia and South Carolina (both 6.3 percent).
The latter two states saw their jobless rates go up closer to 7 percent in February, paralleling a trend in which the national rate of 8.8 percent was 0.1 percent higher than in February of 2016.
Even with that slight increase, the industry employed 219,000 more workers than a year earlier. In addition, February's jobless rate was the second lowest since February 2006, before the Great Recession, when it was 8.6 percent.
The worst states in the country were Alaska (16.6 percent), Rhode Island (16.4 percent, its best February figure in a decade) and New Mexico (15 percent).
Mike Gorrell