The jobs machine humming

At the start of the summer season in 2001, about 232,000 people were at work in northern Nevada.

A year later even after the shock of Sept.

11, even after the freefall of the stock market, even after the much-documented slowdown in tourism and gaming about 236,500 people were at work in the region.

The job-creation machine in northern Nevada, in short, keeps humming along, putting nearly 5,000 people to work in a year's span.

Although the region's unemployment rate continues to be lower than the rest of the nation nearly as low, in fact, as the level economists once considered to be full employment observers see little upward pressure on wages.

The Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation estimate that the rate of job creation in Washoe County during June was 0.8 percent.

That may not look like much.

But consider this: The rate of job creation across the United States has been in negative territory minus 1.0 percent in June, minus 1.2 percent in May.

"Compared to the rest of the United States, northern Nevada is a pretty good jobs creator," says Jim Shabi, a labor market analyst for the state.

Shabi says the region's rapid job creation is particularly noteworthy because it appears to be occurring in small increments a couple of jobs here, a half dozen jobs there across a wide range of companies.

That's in stark contrast to Las Vegas, where analysts can easily track the addition of thousands of new jobs at a time at major hotel and casino properties.

Even as the region has created thousands of new jobs, it continues to attract thousands of new workers.

The upshot? A few shortages of labor and little upward pressure on wages.

In June, the unemployment rate in Washoe County was 4.8 percent, and the Carson City area which includes Douglas, Lyon and Storey counties in addition to the capital reported an unemployment rate of 5.9 percent.

Nationwide, the unemployment rate was 5.9 percent.

Not long ago - about the time many of today's Baby Boomer executives attended college economists suggested that unemployment rates below 4 percent probably were impossible unless they were accompanied by feverish inflation.

In Reno, however, jobs rates dropped well below 4 percent for much of the 1990s, and the jobless rate seldom ventures north of 6 percent.

But those figures need a closer look, says Bob Tonelli, manager of ProNet.

His organization provides networking for job-seeking professionals.

About half the region's labor market, he estimates, is composed of jobs that pay $10 an hour or less.

Unemployment in that sector is low.

It's low enough, in fact, that employers turn to unusual sources for labor.

Fitzgerald's Casino & Hotel, for instance, relies on workers from Eastern Europe to augment its 900- person staff during the busy summer season, says Steve Trounday, senior marketing director at Fitzgerald's.

But in higher-end jobs,Tonelli says the jobless rate may be as high as 10 percent.

Particularly hard-hit? "In information technology, the bottom has fallen out," Tonelli says.

While high-tech jobs traditionally have paid less here than they have in California's Silicon Valley, salaries aren't the big issue with unemployed technology workers, says Renee Moore, branch manager of Integrity Staffing Solutions in Reno.

"They're willing to take the drop in pay," she says.

"The problem is finding the pay." The outlook in high-tech is mixed, according to a fresh study of the Carson City and Reno labor markets by NevadaWorks.

Most employers responding to the NevadaWorks study said they don't expect many new jobs for software engineers, systems analysts, or database administrators.

The outlook is brighter, the study found, for electronics engineers, programmers and support specialists in the region.

Workers seeking administrative jobs also face a long road, says Steve Conine, president of AccuStaff-Reno.

"Our executive placement business is still off significantly from last year," says Conine.

"Individuals that are highly skilled in technical fields are tough to place right now as the demand for the middle and upper manager level positions is fairly scarce right now." While out-of-work bosses struggle, Conine says, top clerical workers remain in high demand.

"Some clerical positions are becoming more challenging to fill as the skill set continues to expand into more technical and computer-literacy requirements," he says.

Some local labor markets are affected largely by national conditions.

At Washoe Medical Center, the hard-to-fill jobs registered nurse, pharmacist, respiratory therapist, radiation therapist, occupational therapist, speech therapist each reflects a national shortage of workers, says Judy Davis, public relations coordinator.

Tonelli notes that supply and demand can change fairly rapidly in individual fields.

About 18 months ago, he says, geologists struggled to find jobs in northern Nevada.

Today, the glut of geologists has dissipated.

Even in fields with high demand, employers say they're not seeing substantial upward pressure on wages.

But are wages in northern Nevada low? It all depends on the comparison.

In 2000, the last year for which the state has figures, the average wage in Nevada was $15.07.

Reno's average wage that year was $15.58; the average wage in Carson City was $14.30.

(The wage differential between Reno and Carson City cuts across much of the local economy.

The state's survey of wages in 2000 found cashiers in Reno made $8.90 an hour; cashiers in Carson City made 45 cents less.

A shipping clerk in Reno made $11.01; shipping clerks in Carson City made 23 cents less.) But the comparisons become less favorable when wages in Reno are compared with equivalent positions in Las Vegas.Tonelli notes that the retail and gaming industries in southern Nevada are far more heavily unionized than they are in northern Nevada, and the effects of unionization are apparent in wage rates.

In one recent study, the state found bartenders in Washoe County averaged $7.56 an hour.

Bartenders in Clark County averaged $10.73.

Another possible reason, Tonelli says, is the large number of recent graduates from the University of Nevada-Reno who are willing to work for relatively low pay in order to stay in the community.

"We have an artificially low wage average," he says.

Moore says Integrity Staffing Solutions sees a slow transition to higher wage rates as employers are willing to pay more for top employers.

"There are never enough good people," she says.