Utah governments hire while others fire

Most local governments nationwide reduced their work forces during 2009 amid the recession. But not in Utah. Cities, counties, school districts and a variety of other service districts in Utah actually increased the number of overall workers by 5.2 percent that year — the third biggest increase among the states, according to a report issued by the Census Bureau.

Only South Dakota and Kansas had higher increases. Nationally, such local governments averaged cutting their workforce by 0.8 percent. The Census Bureau said the number of full-time equivalent employees at Utah local governments increased from 84,060 in 2008 to 88,452 in 2009.

The state government in Utah had a smaller increase: up 1.43 percent that year. That ranked 17th among the states. Nationally, state governments averaged increasing their workforce by 0.9 percent. The Census did not provide a government-by-government breakdown for individual local governments. The Census said that the nation's 89,256 state and local governments employed 16.6 million full-time equivalent employed in 2009, statistically unchanged from 2008. The Deseret News

Note: The full report can be found at http://www.census.gov/govs/apes/