Nevada jobless rate goes up, highest in nation

Nevada’s unemployment rate is the highest in the country at 4.9 percent for November, according to data released Friday by the Labor Department.

The state’s unemployment rate rose from October by 0.3 percentage points, an increase that tied Nevada with Oregon as the states reporting the largest over-the-month jump. Nationally, the unemployment rate was at 3.7 percent, unchanged over the month. Utah had the lowest unemployment rate with 2.2 percent.

Nevada officials said the higher jobless rate is likely from people who recently jump-started their job search. The unemployment rate does not measure people who have stopped looking for work in the past four weeks.

“Our unemployment rate increased to 4.9 percent from 4.6 percent and is up half a percent in the last two months. While this is a significant increase, it has been caused by people entering the labor force — more people who were previously not actively looking for work began looking for work in November,” David Schmidt, chief economist at the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, said in a news release Thursday, which shared the state’s employment numbers ahead of the Labor Department’s report.

“The number of unemployed individuals rose and the share of the population either working or looking for work passed 61 percent for the first time this year.”

DETR said the state added 5,300 jobs in November, bringing the total employment level to 1,476,100.

The Las Vegas metro area added 2,300 jobs since October, up 4.9 percent since November 2021. Reno saw 300 fewer jobs last month, but it was a 3.4 percent increase, or 8,500 jobs, compared to the same period last year. Carson City also reported a decrease of 100 jobs since October, though it was up by 600 jobs, 1.9 percent, year over year.

Contact Sean Hemmersmeier at shemmersmeier@reviewjournal.com. Follow @seanhemmers34 on Twitter.