April best month for jobs in 10 years

Nevada businesses added more jobs in April than in any month over the past 10 years.

Economist Bill Anderson of the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said the state saw an increase of 12,800 jobs over the month.

But the unemployment rate remained at 7.1 percent in April, the same as it has been for the past four months.

But Anderson said people shouldn’t focus too much on that increase.

“The underlying trend of steady, broad-cased and sustainable growth is far more encouraging than an employment spike in a single month,” he said.

He pointed to the projected addition of 45,000 jobs this year, 52,000 in 2016 and 60,000 in 2017.

Numbers for the various reporting areas across the state weren’t available Wednesday.

Anderson said statewide, construction categories are doing well this year with job growth up 9.2 percent in April. Leisure and hospitality saw the biggest increase at 15,300 jobs.

Overall the jobless rate statewide is about a percent lower than it was last April. At the same time, the number of people in the labor force has increased by some 25,000 to 1.4 million.

Overall, there are just more than 100,000 people looking for work in Nevada.

Data for the local reporting areas will be available in a week.