Even with the statewide unemployment rate hovering near an all-time low, big businesses in Tooele County haven't done much hiring in the past year, and most don't intend on doing much in the near future either.

Greg Hargis, personnel manager for Tooele's Wal-Mart Supercenter, said he added a net total of only 17 active employees throughout 2007 to bring the store's current active employee count to 414. Including inactive workers, Hargis said the store has between 450 and 475 total employees.

"Things have been pretty steady here, and even though we've definitely seen our sales increase from last year, that hasn't created enough of a need to hire more people," he said. "We haven't had a lot more positions come open either. We're not really booming and we're not really losing employees either."

Hargis said the Tooele Wal-Mart is helped by a relatively low turnover rate.

"We usually only see turnover with people working the less desirable jobs here," he said. "We also see about an 80 or 90 percent turnover rate with people who have worked here less than a year. People who have worked here longer than a year generally don't want to leave."

Charles Hansen, human resources manager for Detroit Diesel, said his company has increase employee counts only slightly as well.

"Our average head county has gone up only a little from last year, and we're not anticipating any huge growth anytime soon," he said. "We just hire a couple here and there as the need arises, and our turnover goes with the market in our industry."

Hansen said he is also not worried about losing employees or having to lay anyone off.

"When markets go down, remanufacturing, which is what our business does, always holds strong," he said.

EG&G Defense Materials, the largest private employer in Tooele County, added 12 employees last month, raising its employee count from 780 to 792, but that surge was an anomaly.

"There are always openings we're trying to fill, with some, like our technical positions, being more difficult to fill, but we pretty much have a sufficient amount of employees right now," said Mark Mesesan, project communication specialist for EG&G. "We stay pretty consistent with our process of doing business and the number of openings we need to fill, and we've been good at bringing in people to fill the jobs we need filled."

Mesesan said the company hired several employees for a major project started in the summer of 2006, but that recently there has been nothing in the works that would require a major employee increase.

"We don't anticipate any increases in hiring any time soon because we're mostly just focused on retaining our current people," he said.

James Glade, human resources director for Mountain West Medical Center, said the hospital didn't do much hiring during 2007, bringing on only five new employees. MWMC currently employs 375.

"We hire anywhere from eight to 15 new people in a given month, but with the number of people each month leaving for different reasons, such as for pregnancy or to spend more time at home, we probably gain or lose one or two employees a month overall," Glade said. "Right now we have probably nine or 10 current openings, most of which are nursing opportunities for RNs and entry-level positions. Even though we pretty much always have openings, we're not seeing any massive need for employees right now."

Glade said he expects to see slow but steady growth at the hospital as more services are added.

"The new cardiology and cath lab last year required additional staffing, and with the new women's center going up this year, we will definitely need more employees, which will also include more round-the-clock staff and additional housekeeping," he said. "It's hard to tell right now how many employees we'll need to bring in throughout this next year."

Nicole Cline, economic development director for Tooele County, said new the Allegheny Technologies plant setting up shop in Rowley this year should boost the number of available new jobs in the county considerably. The company is expected to open this fall and employ around 150 people.

"Allegheny will be starting their recruitment process soon, and it will be interesting to see how many people move here to work there when it opens," she said. "It will also be fun to see the competition that comes with more larger businesses moving here."

Doug Radunich: dougrad@tooeletranscript.com