Nevada added more than 11,000 jobs in October despite the labor shortage.
Nevada's unemployment rate continues to drop. Statewide, the jobless rate is 7.3 percent. It is even better in the Reno area at 3.2 percent. That is a far cry from early in the pandemic. The shutdown of nonessential businesses left the state's unemployment rate at 30 percent. It was 19.9 percent in Washoe County.
"Our employment has pretty much recovered all of the jobs that we lost from February of 2020 to May of 2020," David Schmidt, Chief Economist for the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said. "We've gained more than that many jobs back."
Schmidt says most of the job growth is due to northern Nevada's growing manufacturing sector, which has more jobs than southern Nevada. He says it is five percent more of the state's economy than it was 10 years ago. Transportation, warehousing, food, retail and trade are also growing.
"A lot of the areas that are affected by either e-commerce or people being able to spend the stimulus dollars we've seen over the last year-and-a-half, a lot of these industries have been affected," Schmidt said. "You have the online shopping and the e-commerce impact showing up in transportation and warehousing while you see retail, trade and food services, people being able to take that money that they're receiving and spend it locally."
The money flowing in the economy is good for employment, but it is also leaving a smaller pool of applicants for many industries. Flowing Tide Pub has seven locations and about 200 employees. It is trying to hire more staff but there are not many applicants.
"We're busier than we have been in previous years and with holiday season coming, we're even busier but the staffing becomes an issue," Justin Moscove, Partner of Flowing Tide Pub said.
8,600 Washoe County residents are unemployed, but only 2,250 people or 26 percent of them collect unemployment benefits. So the labor shortage is not necessarily a result of people living off the government instead of working.
"We thought we'd get a lot of applications in October and so by November, we'd be flush again, and not even close," Moscove said.
Moscove says employees will fill in at different locations and he has to be creative because of the staff shortage.
"Some of the kitchens have closed early because we don't have the staffing for it and some of our 24-hour joints, we had to shut down the kitchen at night because we don't have the staffing for it," Moscove said.
Companies throughout northern Nevada are dealing with the same challenges. Schmidt says there are many variables that are causing the labor shortage. The low jobless rate is just one of them.
"People may be out of the workforce, not just because they don't think there's any jobs for them but also because they want to work but they're trying to line up medial care, childcare," Schmidt said.
He says many older workers may have decided to retire early because of the pandemic. Others have returned to school or taken different career paths.
Employment typically ramps up during the holidays but that could fluctuate in the new year.
"As you have these seasonally employed workers, potentially looking for other work, there might be other opportunities to help alleviate the needs that other employees have at that time of the year," Schmidt said.
Moscove is hoping that he will get more applicants as a result, possibly alleviating his staffing shortages.
"We used to be able to pick and choose our employees," Moscove said. "Now, when someone walks in the door, you're hired. Before, we would have a couple interviews and now it's to the point where the first interview, we can hire you on the spot."
Schmidt expects Nevada's economy to continue to grow. About 60,000 hospitality workers are still unemployed in Clark County but that could decrease as the pandemic draws to an end. He says as antiviral therapeutics, more vaccinations and research about Covid-19 happen, the economy will continue to grow.
"We will be able to learn to deal with this in a more normal fashion and not have the big disruptions that we saw back in 2020," Schmidt said.
Northern Nevada has about the same number of jobs as it did before the pandemic. Schmidt says we could see an all-time high by the end of the year or in early 2022.
