Jobless figures brings worries

A jobless rate well below 4 percent is good news for the economy in Washoe County, but it presents a challenge for those trying to attract new employers to the region.

Companies studying new operations in the region wonder how they'll find a labor force in a community where the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation last week reported the unemployment rate is

3.7 percent.

That compares with a national unemployment rate of 6 percent.

Statewide, the figure is 5 percent.

The number jumps out at specialists in site selection.

"We hear it all the time," says Stan Thomas, the director of business planning and growth for Sierra Pacific Power, the Reno-based utility.

Thomas says, however, that misgivings about the availability of labor

in northern Nevada disappear fairly quickly once companies complete more research.

While the reported jobless figures are low, they don't reflect the number of underemployed people who leap at the chance to take better jobs.

A study two years ago by NevadaWorks, the nonprofit agency that runs workforce development programs in the region, found that about 33,000 people in the area were working at jobs that didn't fully utilize their skills or education.

When new employers come to town, those underemployed people look to match their skills with new positions, says Tom Fitzgerald, chief executive officer of Nevada Works.

And when they take those jobs, they leave openings that can be filled by less-skilled workers.

Says Thomas, "When we do job fairs for 100 jobs, 500 people show up." Many of those attending, he says, are looking to move up in the job market.

The jobless figures are deceptive, too, because most companies moving to the area are looking for specific sets of skills and are interested only in the availability of workers with those skills.

And because most of the companies moving to Reno recently have been medium-sized employers averaging 40 or 50 jobs each none of them has encountered significant problems finding the specific skills they need, says Chuck Alvey, president and chief executive officer of the Economic Development Authority of Northern Nevada.

Then, too, Thomas says companies increasingly are bringing their own labor force with them not just key managers, but lower-ranking staff as well.

That reflects the improved perception of Reno across the nation, he says.

"Getting people to move here is a whole lot easier than it used to be," Thomas says.

In fact, Fitzgerald says much of Reno's future labor force currently is living elsewhere, watching the northern Nevada market closely for a chance to move.

"People tend to flock to this area," he says.

"There are a lot of people who watch the Reno job market because they want to move here."