This month’s Economic Snapshots provide an overview of state and national trends, highlighting indicators such as employment, demographics, housing, consumer sentiment and more. A few of this month’s points of interest include the following:
For the fifth month in a row, the U.S. labor market recovery slowed. The U.S. added 245,000 jobs in November, an overall increase in employment, but nearly 365,000 fewer jobs than were added in October. While the unemployment rate declined to 6.7%, most of the drop is explained by fewer workers looking for jobs as the labor force participation rate declined from 61.7% in October to 61.5% in November.
Utah’s economic recovery remains near the best in the nation. The Beehive State remains the second closest state to recovering to its 2019 economic levels, with employment declining less than 1% over the last year. Unemployment dropped from 5% in September back to its post-crisis low of 4.1% in October after unemployed workers dropped back out of the state’s workforce.
After seven months of year-over-year employment decline, Idaho became the first state to report no job losses year over year since the beginning of the coronavirus economic crisis. Once again, unemployment was well above the post-crisis low of 3.8%, registering 5% in October. Fortunately, this elevated level appears to be due to more Idahoans remaining in the workforce. The Idaho labor force participation rate was 64.7% in October, near its highest rate in 10 years.
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