Nevada adds 1,300 jobs in January

Statewide employment continued to increase in January, adding another 1,300 jobs for a total of 1.36 million.

Total employment rose in 16 of Nevada’s 17 counties in January including Carson City, which added not only 900 to the workforce over the month but 600 to the number employed.

But while the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 4.9 percent for the month, the unadjusted or raw rate rose from 4.7 percent to 5.2 percent in large part because of layoffs of seasonal holiday season workers. The seasonal adjustment factors out those post-holiday layoffs and, therefore, results in a much smaller change.

Seasonal layoffs also account for the increase in the capital’s jobless rate from 4.9 percent to 5.8 percent over the month. There are now 25,900 in Carson’s labor force with 1,500 seeking work.

Statewide, there are 1.47 million workers, 77,300 of them looking for a job.

Seasonal layoffs also showed prominently in Nevada’s other major markets. The jobless rate went from 3.7 percent to 4.6 percent in the Reno-Sparks metro area and from 4.9 percent to 5.4 percent in Las Vegas.

Rural parts of the state including Elko, Churchill, Douglas and Lyon counties all experienced a similar upward bump in the jobless rate. In Churchill, it went from just 4.2 percent to 5.1 percent leaving 533 looking for work in a labor force of 10,512.

Douglas reported 5.2 percent out of work for January compared to 4.4 percent in December. That translates to 1,180 out of work in a pool of 22,751.

Lyon, one of the hardest hit counties through the recession, got down to 5.6 percent in December. In January, that bounced up to 6.7 percent of the 21,842 in the labor force.

David Schmidt, chief economist for the Department of Employment Training and Rehabilitation, said most areas of the state continue to see improvement with unemployment rates lower over the year ended Jan. 31 in 15 of 17 counties and fewer initial claims for unemployment checks in all but four counties.

Since the depth of the recession, he said Las Vegas has added back 190,100 jobs and Reno 47,200 jobs.

Over the past year, Reno added 4.5 percent more jobs and Carson City 4.8 percent more. Las Vegas jobs are only up 2.3 percent but that represents a much larger total number of workers.