Entrepreneur realizes dream of launching her own business

Lisa Escobar traded velvet ropes for vintage chairs.

Escobar had a quintessential Vegas dream job managing high-end nightclubs Tryst and XS inside the Wynn Las Vegas and Encore. But as much as Escobar loved it, that job wasn't a calling.

So in 2012 — in the middle of Southern Nevada's recession — Escobar quit and launched a business as an interior decorator and stylist, using her Rolodex of VIPs as a starting point for a client list.

"It was a huge change. I went from profit to passion," she said. "I always had this urge inside me. I always knew I wanted to have my own business. I wanted to learn something new and be challenged every day. I figured that was the best time to do it."

Thousands of other Nevadans have had the same epiphany since the downturn.

The state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation announced a record 62,500 employers in its unemployment insurance system in the second quarter, up 11.6 percent from a recession low of 56,000 in 2011, and up 3.1 percent from a pre-recession peak of 60,600 in 2008.

Business growth was broad, but the biggest gains happened in the business and professional services sector, which grew by 22 percent, with especially hot gains in computer system design and management and technical consulting. Trade, transportation and utilities, a category that includes retail, expanded by 6.3 percent, while the number of education employers grew by 11.5 percent.

In some ways, it may seem those improvements have yet to filter down completely to Nevada's workers.

After all, the state's jobless rate, which has stalled near 7 percent for much of 2015 — including a most recent reading of 6.8 percent in July — is nearly 2 percentage points higher than the national average of 5.3 percent. Nevada ranked No. 2 for joblessness in July, behind only West Virginia's 7.5 percent.

To see how that's possible amid strong employer growth, consider the state's labor force.

Nearly 23,000 new workers have entered Nevada's labor pool so far this year, said Bill Anderson, chief economist of the employment department. Not all of them have found jobs, so they've partly canceled out the state's 45,000 new jobs year over year.

More workers are important, because they signal confidence in a growing economy, said Brian Gordon, a principal with local research firm Applied Analysis. But thousands of additions to the labor pool blunt the effects job growth has on unemployment.

Also, though it's been slow-going, new businesses and their new jobs have definitely dented the state's unemployment, Gordon said. Look at late 2010, when Nevada's jobless rate of 14.3 percent outpaced national unemployment of 9.8 percent by nearly five percentage points. Taken in that context, beating national unemployment by 1.5 percentage points is a big improvement, he said, especially considering the state's job market fell by 132,500 positions in one year alone, from mid-2008 to mid-2009.

"Nevada will continue to whittle away at the gap, but it has been and will be a slow and tedious process," Gordon said. "Many workers who lost their jobs in the recession have skill sets that may not be well-suited for the opportunities that exist today. The world is much different than it was."

Added Anderson: "As long as we continue to see 3.5 percent to 4 percent job growth and 45,000 to 50,000 new jobs year over year, we'll continue to see downward pressure on the jobless rate. It just won't be as pronounced a decline as it would have been had the labor force stayed steady."

Gordon said business formation across Nevada should stay healthy for the foreseeable future. Major projects from Tesla's gigafactory up north to Genting's Resorts World Las Vegas on the Strip will spur small firms to provide ancillary services. Taxable retail sales and visitor volumes remain at record levels, and as long as national economic conditions are healthy enough to support discretionary spending on travel and tourism, Nevada faces few serious employment headwinds, he said.

And if Escobar's company is any indication, all of that business growth will eventually pick up slack in the labor pool.

Escobar has three part-time assistants, but she aims to expand to as many as 10 full-time staffers in coming years.

"I definitely want to grow. My assistants started off as interns, and I really want them to be a part of something bigger," she said. "I want to help give them an opportunity to do what they love and make great money at the same time. I really do love our city, and I want to give back. I want to create that type of opportunity for people."

Contact Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com. Find @_JRobison on Twitter.