Unemployment falls to 4.6 percent in Nevada

The statewide unemployment rate fell to 4.6 percent in raw numbers, 4.7 percent seasonally adjusted, in April.

The improvement was in part because of notable employment gains statewide. Job growth is up 3.6 percent or 46,200 over the year. While most of that is in Las Vegas, Reno saw a 3.1 percent gain adding 6,700 jobs and Carson City a 1.7 percent increase — about 500 more jobs.

Statewide, the unemployment rate fell a tenth from March and is now down 1.2 percent from April 2016. Just 67,300 are seeking work in a labor force of 1.44 million.

Carson City’s rate was down two tenths from March and a full 1.5 percent from a year ago. The capital’s jobless rate is less likely to fluctuate as much because of the concentration of public employees. Three of Carson’s top four employers are public entities — the state, school district and Carson City.

In the Capital, just 1,200 are seeking work out of 24,600 in the workforce.

In Reno-Sparks, the jobless rate finished the month at 3.9 percent — the first time below 4 percent since 2006. Of the 232,600 in the workforce, just 9,200 are jobless.

Reno-Sparks is down three tenths over the month and 1.4 percent in the past year.

In Churchill County, which started this calendar year with 5.5 percent unemployment, April’s numbers show just 4 percent seeking work. That translates to 420 people out of 10,470 in the workforce.

Douglas, while still struggling, continues to be a bit better off than Carson City with a 4.7 percent jobless rate in April. Of the 21,929 in the Douglas labor force, 1,033 were listed as looking for work.

Lyon County has seen significant improvement since January, falling from 7.2 percent unemployment to 5.7 percent in April. There are 1,195 job seekers there in a labor force of 21,037.