The Utah Department of Workforce Services has released the newest edition of Local Insights, a quarterly publication that looks at the economic indicators for the state. Regional economist Lecia Parks Langston told The Independent that when it comes to the southwest region, the outlook is very positive. Washington County in particular is noted for its steady growth. Langston said there really are no bad numbers when it comes to the Washington County economic outlook.
“There isn’t a bad economic indicator to be found,” Langston said “Jobs are strong but not too strong. We have good construction numbers. Not too fast like it was before [the Recession of 2008]. … We’ve got a very good economy.”
While Beaver, Iron and Kane Counties each saw mostly modest gains and Garfield County saw an overall negative decline in its economic indicators, Washington County added substantial numbers in virtually every category.
Between December of 2013 and December of 2014, Washington County added over 3,000 new jobs. Construction, retail, transportation, health services, and leisure and hospitality services added the majority of those new positions. The overall growth rate was 6 percent, while the unemployment rate (as of March of 2015) was at 3.9 percent. Sales between December of 2013 and December 2014 rose by 7 percent.
Local Insights had a special focus this quarter on construction which explained how the Recession of 2008 affected southwest Utah and how that has contributed to the current Washington County economic outlook. When the construction industry was at its height in 2006, there were approximately 11,000 construction jobs in the region. When the housing bubble collapsed, the industry felt the effects most strongly, and by February of 2010, there were fewer than 4,000 construction jobs–a decline of 64 percent. Since that time, however, the construction trade has rebounded, and while it has not come close to reaching the peak employment of 2006, it reached 6000 jobs by the end of 2014.
Washington County was noted for being the “500-pound gorilla in Southwest Utah’s construction-employment room,” accounting for 84 percent of the new construction jobs in the region, with Iron County a distant second with 13 percent.
Local Insights noted that Washington County’s slow, steady growth, while not exciting, was actually a healthy rise, as opposed to “overheated” as it was before the Recession.
“We were seeing job growth in the 10 percent range,” Langston said, referring to the period before the housing market collapsed. “Five percent for a lot of places would be overheating, but with our population growth, those are good numbers. That is an optimal level of job growth.”
Local Insights states: “Boring can be good when the economy is strong. Washington County’s economic indicators have changed little in the past several years. However, job growth continues to trend near its strong long-term average, the unemployment rate continues to edge down and sales remain strong…Most counties will find cause for sincere envy in these tediously similar indicators.”
