Nye unemployment rate edges higher in July

The Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation’s unemployment report released at the end of August shows Nye County carrying the second highest unemployment rate in the state in July.

Nye County had an unemployment rate of 7.8% in July, only trailing Clark County’s 9.4% rate, the highest in the state.

Nye saw an increase of 0.6 percentage points from June’s 7.2% rate to July’s 7.8%. Going back to May, Nye County’s unemployment rate was down to 6.2% at the time.

Clark, the only county overall to see a decrease in its rate, fell 0.2 percentage points from 9.6% in June to 9.4% in July.

Nye County’s unemployment rate is still down from 2020. On a year-over-year basis, the county saw a decrease in July of 4 percentage points with Nye’s rate being at 11.8% during the same month in 2020. Clark’s decrease was 10.2 percentage points, falling from 19.6% in July 2020 to the 9.4% rate in July 2021.

In a mid-August release, DETR announced the state unemployment rate, which dropped slightly from 7.8% in June to 7.7% in July. DETR’s July 2021 economic report also noted that the state added back 4,800 jobs over the month.

“Nevada continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic,” said David Schmidt, chief economist at DETR, in a Thursday release. “July data provides us with a better look at the pace of this recovery since the state fully relaxed business restrictions in June.”

According to DETR, the unemployment rate at the state level in July was down from the same time in 2020 when it hit 16.6%. That was 8.9 percentage points higher than it was in July 2021. The number of jobs tracked in July were also below typical levels, but up 100,000 from July 2020.

DETR stated that the large increase of employment over the last year shows the significant effects the pandemic had on the state’s unemployment. The total employment level in Nevada sat at over 1.3 million in July.

Schmidt said, “While some industries have exceeded their pre-recession peak employment, others remain significantly lower. Most notably, the casino hotel industry remains down roughly 67,000 jobs from its pre-recession peak and is just 62 percent recovered, while food services are 97 percent recovered, and retail trade employment is 100 percent recovered. The state’s unemployment rate dropped slightly to 7.7 percent this month. While July data is positive, there is still significant disruption to the economy as businesses and the labor force seek to recover from the effects of the pandemic.”

The data is compiled by DETR’s Research and Analysis Bureau, which is responsible for creating, analyzing, and reporting Nevada’s labor market information, in cooperation with the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics.

More can be found at http://www.nevadaworkforce.com