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Show Wednesday, January 23, 2008 A9 DWS releases December employment information Vernal Express Utah's number of nonfarm wage and salaried jobs for December Decem-ber dropped noticeably, falling by three-tenths of a point compared . with November, according to the state Department of Workforce Services. This places employment '. growth since December 2006 at 3.6 percent, a vibrant rate, yet one trending downward. Still, even with this decline, Utah remains the best economically performing state in the nation. "It's becoming more noticeable notice-able that the Utah economy is , coming off its high horse," said ' DWS Chief Economist Mark Knold. "Employment growth is starting to slow in bigger chunks. The three-tenths of a percentage drop from last month is the largest larg-est movement we've seen since the beginning of 2007." Knold predicted a few more moderate drops in employment growth during 2008, particularly in the first half of the year. "There is a real negative psychology surrounding the U.S. economic environment, and it is getting heavy media play," Knold said. "Whether it's real or not is still up in the air - because the third quarter GDP number was well above expectation - but this negative conjecture has a way of creating its own life." Knold said talk of a national recession could cause Utah's business community and consumers con-sumers become cautious. Some industries, like construction and finance, are no doubt moving mov-ing downward, he said, while noting that other industries are Investigators still seek Dulen, warrant issued By Geoff Lesik Uintah BAsin News Service Roosevelt police obtained an arrest warrant Thursday for Bill Dwayne Dulen, the man suspected of sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl, but have yet to find him. , i i Dulen, 40, has been missing since Jan. 5, when his wife confronted con-fronted him in a phone call with allegations of abuse after she found a note from the girl to her husband. He is now charged with two first degree felony counts of aggravated sex abuse of a child. Roosevelt Police Lt. Ben Lem-mon Lem-mon said investigators have had no luck tracking down one of the last people they believe saw Dulen on Jan. 5. He said the missing man wrote a check to someone named Andrew or Drew Black on the day he disappeared. They hope that Black may have an idea of where Dulen went. "If (Black's) out there we'd ; like him to get a hold of us; we'd like to talk to him," Lemmon said. Several searches of the area where Dulen's abandoned truck was found turned up footprints leaving the vehicle's passenger . sideandwalkingbacktoanother set of tire tracks. There were no other footprints in the freshly fallen snow. LEPC Continued from A10 Management Agency, if an area is declared a federal disaster area; but unlike what many people believe, FEMA is not automatically automati-cally sent whenever there is a major disaster. "That's something people : need to understand," Johnson ' said. "In an emergency, city and local governments control things . in the beginning, and they make ' the decision who to call. It works : next to county, then state, then . federal. Each of those steps re-: re-: quires the person in charge of the higher level to ask for the level higher up." jk I,, , , , ffc" hmm.mi..:rM.i ujalu:KaMrMuid Mike Lefler, accepting the State Forester's Award in October, took over as Duchesne County's emergency management director two weeks before the disastrous Neola North Fire started on June 29. Lefler says he and the county's Local Emergency Planning Committee have been working ever since to apply the lessons learned from the fire. "pausing and seeing what's to come." "The news says they are to expect a downturn, so they're waiting for it to materialize. I'm speculating that this caution is slowing the hiring activity around the state," Knold said. "But considering the heady pace of Utah's economy over the past three years and the tight labor market it creates, not to mention the possibility of overbuilding and the stresses on the state's infrastructure, a Utah economic pause might not be a bad thing. "Let's catch our breath and see where things stand." Since December 2006, the United States' economy has added 1.3 million new jobs - a growth rate of 0.9 percent. The approximately 44,800 newjobs in Utah represent about 3.4 percent of all the new jobs added in the United States over the past year - this from a state that comprises less than 1 percent of all United States jobs. Growth continues above the state's long-term average of 3.3 percent per year since 1950. Approximately 44,800 new jobs have been created in the Utah economy over the past year, raising rais-ing total wage and salary employment employ-ment in Utah to 1,288,000. This increase translates to around 3,700 newjobs created monthly over the past year. Utah's other primary indicator indica-tor of current labor market conditions, con-ditions, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, measures 3.2 percent for December - 0.6 "We strongly believe he got into a vehicle and left the area," Lemmon said in a Jan. 10 interview. inter-view. "I personally believe - and I could be absolutely wrong-but. I have this gut feeling that he's running." Investigators executed a search warrant on Dulen's home and truck on Jan. 8. Lemmon said last week that a computer was -taken from the home .and is in - Salt Lake' City being analyzed. Dulen ' s friends and family remain re-main concerned about his welfare and are anxious to hear from him, Lemmon said. He made a plea directly to the missing man. "Mr. Dulen, if you're out there, the police want to work with you and it's going to be in your best interest to turn yourself in," the lieutenant said. "If you're out there please give someone a call." Dulen is 5 foot 8 inches tall and weighs 186 pounds. He has brown hair, brown eyes and wears glasses. He was last seen wearing jeans and a black and gray Oakland Raiders jacket. Family members told police he frequently wears NASCAR hats. Anyone with information about Dulen is asked to contact the Roosevelt Police Department at 722-4558 or call 911. Johnson said the best thing citizens can do to help in a big disaster is to be personally prepared. pre-pared. Outside help will generally come, he said, but it will take time to arrive. "It's always going to be two to three days before outside resources are going to get here. " he said. "Honestly, the No. 1 thing that I would tell anybody is prepare yourselves. Get 72-hour kits together, have the things you would need to sustainyourselves for that first two to three days. That would take a huge load off the LEPC for that amount of time." Next week: A profile on the Daggett County LEPC. percentage points higher than was measured in December 2006, when the rate was 2.6 percent. It was also a noticeable jump above November's 2.8-percent rate. Approximately 43,700 Utahns were unemployed in December 2007 compared to 34,000 in December De-cember 2006. The United States' unemployment rate rose three-tenths three-tenths of a percent this month, climbing to 5 percent. Knold said all industries, except information, show job growth over the past year. Trade, transportation, utilities - led by retail trade - lead in job growth. But some industries show the rate of growth slowing. These include construction, financial activities, and professional and business services. One industry, education and health services, has shown a recent upward tic in employment. employ-ment. "This some-up-and-some-down industrial activity is actually a movement toward a normal pattern," Knold said. "The strong and persistent growth across all industries that characterized the preceding preced-ing three years was actually an abnormal pattern. Usually the industrial activity in the state resembles a juggling act." Delayed employment data, as reported by Utah's employers for the third quarter of 2007, reveals three things. First, the construction slowdown took hold in September; second, the financial slowdown as yet is not a mortgage or real estate thing, but instead traced to credit card servicing businesses; and third, the employment services industry ground to a halt in that quarter, meaning it's supplying fewer workers to the economy than it did a year ago. "We have used the employment employ-ment services industry in the past as a canary-in-the-coal-mine type of trigger, as employment increases here precede and signal employment surges that come throughout the rest of the industrial in-dustrial landscape later," Knold said. "Does a contraction in that industry signal the same in the opposite direction? Probably, but it's hard to be dogmatic about that in this super low unemployment unemploy-ment environment." Knold said it may be that there "just aren't enough workers to support the industry and that's why it slowed. After all, he noted, the industry feeds off of detached and idled workers. "Yet it also could be the first area where businesses get cautious cau-tious about hiring activities and manifest trepidations about the future," Knold conceded. "Considering "Con-sidering that unemployment jumped noticeably this month, chances are, it is probably based in employer caution." 789-3511 "'7 A .1 Two new floor plans now starting at only $139,950 I 100 Financing!! No closing costs!! I 6.5 Fixed rate 30 year loan!! Why rent? Monthly payments from only $950!! Open Monday - Friday tL. . ... f J i IL m From Main LONE ICE FISHER A lone ice hut graces Steinaker Reservoir in the late afternoon on Monday, Jan. 21, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. 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