SALT LAKE CITY — The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce releases a monthly Road to Prosperity Economic Dashboard in conjunction with the Kem C. Gardner Institute; it’s comprised of metrics that point to how our economy is doing and how consumers are responding.
It’s one way to arm business leaders with information they can use to inform their business decisions.
“Utah’s economy continues to be very strong, especially in relation to our national economy, and there are a few indicators that point us to that and the number one that I would mention is our employment growth,” said Derek Miller, the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Chamber.
Last month’s numbers show Utah’s employment grew 2.3 percent year-over-year in June, better than the country’s 1 percent growth.
“I really love to see when our job numbers are increasing because it drives so much,” said Miller. “It’s obviously important for individuals to have jobs and it means that they can take care of themselves and their family. It also means that they’re making money.”
Miller noted that two job sectors did see some loss: trade, and what’s called “other services." The latter, he says, saw a dip due to crackdowns on immigration because those are jobs immigrants typically fill.
“Because our economy is diverse, we don’t have all of our so-to-speak 'economic eggs in one basket,' we can withstand downturns in some industries,” said Miller. “By and large what we saw in our job growth is that these were across the board and almost all except those two industries, we saw job growth.”
The stock market reacts to monthly job numbers and inflation numbers.
The market went up because of the widespread belief that the Federal Reserve would reduce interest rates.
Miller said as long as Utah trends toward the Fed’s two percent target, the better chances of a rate cut, which will add more gasoline to the state’s economic engine.
“We did see a slight uptick in inflation. It’s still under 3 percent, which is good," he said. "It went from 2.3% to 2.7% and we never want to see an uptick in that inflation because that certainly impacts the economy in a number of negative ways, but we’re obviously very grateful that we’re not where we were at your and a half ago, where we were approaching double-digit inflation.”
You can view the dashboard on the Chamber's website HERE.
