Utah’s economy is comprised of roughly 65,000 companies. Companies, as opposed to worksites, are considered the corporate entity — the business as a whole. For instance, we label Intermountain Healthcare as one company, even though it has numerous locations throughout Utah.
The size of a company can be measured in several ways. One is through money (sales, revenues, wealth, etc.), but that can be hard to quantify and less transparent than the alternatives. A more preferred way is by the number of employees. This determination probably has a more pervasive impact on the Utah economy than do monetary accomplishments. It is possible for a company with limited employment to generate a lot in sales or revenues. That’s great, yet how much of those earnings and income flow into the Utah economy?
Measuring through employment reflects how the local economy benefits through wage and salary disbursements to workers who in turn spend much throughout the rest of the local economy. So looking at business size by number of employees probably gives a better proxy of a business’ impact in Utah than will most other measures.
Read more in the latest issue of Utah Insights.
All issues for substate levels can be found here.
