Nevada continued its workforce recovery in November, albeit at a much slower pace than before.
The state added back 2,600 jobs, far fewer than the 12,000 jobs added in October. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Reporting Area added 5,100 jobs, but its Reno-Sparks counterpart saw a decline of 300 jobs. There are now 988,700 employed in the Las Vegas area, 251,500 in the Reno-Sparks area.
Carson City, meanwhile, added 200 jobs for a total of 31,200.
Overall, the area lagging in recovery compared to pre-pandemic employment remains the hotel-casino sector, which is still down some 66,000 jobs compared to March 2019.
But some sectors are actually up above pre-pandemic employment including retail trade that now employs 160,800 people compared to 154,900 in December 2019.
Transportation and warehousing is more than 10 percent above pre-pandemic employment at 86,600.
Nevada’s total employment remains at about 95 percent of pre-pandemic employment.
Nevada’s unemployment rate decreased in November dropping the seasonally adjusted jobless rate to 6.8 percent (down four tenths) and the raw rate to 5.7 percent (down three tenths).
That is the largest monthly decline in unemployment this year.
In addition, there were just 10,087 initial claims for jobless benefits, about one-third as many as a year ago.
