April jobless rate up a bit from March; Carson City at 6.7%

Statewide unemployment remained at a seasonally adjusted 5.8 percent in April.

The raw rate, however, rose a bit compared to March — up two-tenths to 6.1 percent.

The unadjusted rate allows a direct comparison with the different local unemployment reports, which are also unadjusted for seasonal impacts.

Las Vegas was the cause of that minor increase since unemployment ticked up a tenth to 6.1 percent in April. But Las Vegas is down a full eight-tenths compared to April 2015 and that metropolitan reporting area has now regained all 134,300 jobs lost during the recession.

Over the year, the Reno/Sparks reporting area has decreased 1.2 percent and, this past month, went down a tenth to just 5.4 percent.

Carson City is also down a tenth compared to March and eight-tenths compared to April 2015. But the capital is still suffering compared to other major reporting areas with a 6.7 percent jobless rate.

Carson City has a total labor force of 24,800 with 1,700 out of work. One of Carson’s problems is the lack of growth in the governmental employment sector since public employment makes up a much bigger percentage of the workforce in the capital than it does in other parts of the state — about 9,200 workers.

Like Las Vegas, Churchill County’s unemployment rate ticked up in April from 5.8 to 6 percent. Some 629 people are seeking work there out of 10,470. Likewise, Douglas County saw a two-tenths increase to 6.1 percent. Douglas has a labor force of 22,553 and 1,365 jobless.

Lyon County was up a tenth as well to 8.3 percent. The county’s 21,438 labor force has just 1,779 seeking work. That’s Nevada’s second highest unemployment rate, behind only Mineral where 9 percent of the labor force are jobless.

There are a total of 1.43 million in Nevada’s labor force, leaving just 83,800 seeking work. More than 64,000 of those people are in Las Vegas. In Reno/Sparks, just 12,600 are seeking employment in a pool of 232,800 workers.