Summit County Economic Development and Housing Director Jeff Jones is on a tour of eastside towns to share current and future economic conditions.
“We estimate the population being around 43,000 people, and we're actually projecting over the next 10 years to decline in population by about 333 people,” Jones reported to the Oakley City Council Aug. 27.
He admited that might surprise most people, since there’s construction underway and new projects being approved in the Wasatch Back.
The University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute still projects Summit County will grow by thousands of people through 2060, albeit at a slower and slower rate each year.
The Gardner Institute thinks more and more people will continue to move to Summit County. It also believes deaths will outnumber births locally beginning in the 2030s.
Jones explained his math looks at what has happened in prior years.
“And [the model] also updates that information by quarter, and then projects that information forward,” he said in Oakley. “The last five years may be weighted more heavily than the prior 10 years or 15 years.”
And while Summit County had been growing quickly since the 2002 Winter Olympics and at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, that trend has reversed.
Summit County shrank in population in 2022 and 2023. Models are split on what happened last year, indicating it may have held steady.
Jones’ latest employment projections anticipate about 7,300 [7,293] more jobs over the next decade.
But lots of Summit County residents hold two jobs to make ends meet, he said, due to the high cost of living. Adding those “side hustles” to the equation, Jones estimates the county will add 10,000 more jobs by 2035.
The upshot for quality of life is that, even if the population shrinks, traffic on roads, trails and ski runs may not.
Meanwhile, the Summit County Council has set a goal to approve 1,500 affordable housing units by 2035.
