Nye County unemployment falls in May

Unemployment rates in Nevada continued to fall in May, according to data released by the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation on Tuesday.

In Nye County, unemployment rates decreased by 0.1 percentage points in May from the prior month, from 6.2% to 6.1%, respectively. These numbers, not seasonally adjusted, are much lower than May 2020 when rates hit 16.2% in Nye during the height of the pandemic.

Decreases in unemployment rates occurred across the state in May except in Pershing County and neighboring Esmeralda County. Pershing increased by 0.1 percentage points in May over April, with Esmeralda experiencing an increase of 0.2 percentage points.

Nye County had the second highest unemployment rate in the state in May at 6.1%. Nye’s rate was well below Clark County’s unemployment rate (8.9%), but just ahead of Lyon County’s 5.5% unemployment rate in May.

Clark County’s unemployment rate has seen major decreases since May 2020 when its rate sat at 28.1%. That equates to a drop of 19.2 percentage points.

According to DETR’s May 2021 economic report, Nevada’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in May. This was a decrease of 16.7 percentage points from May 2020 when the statewide unemployment rate was 24.5 percent. These estimates are seasonally adjusted.

In the state’s three major metropolitan areas, unemployment rates, not seasonally adjusted, varied in May: 8.9 percent in the Las Vegas area, 4.5 percent in Reno, and 5.0 percent in the Carson City area.

“In Nevada’s counties the lowest unemployment rate was in Eureka County at 2.2 percent,” DETR said in a press release.

Also, since May 2020, all of the state’s 17 counties have seen a decrease in their unemployment rates. As part of DETR’s data, Carson City is counted as a county.

The annual decreases across the state have ranged from 2.1 to over 19 percentage points, according to DETR’s data.

This report was based on data from DETR’s Research and Analysis Bureau.

“A part of DETR, the Bureau is responsible for creating, analyzing, and reporting Nevada’s labor market information in cooperation with the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics,” DETR states in its release.