Jobless rate up for 3rd straight month

Nevada's unemployment rate rose again in August - the third straight month of increases after five months of improvement.

From 12.9 percent in July, the rate rose to 13.4 percent statewide.

There was little change in the rate for the Carson City reporting area - up just 0.1 percent to 12.7 percent.

Despite the increases, both the statewide and Carson City rates are lower than they were in August 2010, when unemployment in Nevada was 14.9 percent and the capital's was 13.6 percent.

In Elko, still feeding on the gold mining boom, the rate declined 0.1 percent to 7.4 percent.

Also reporting declines in the jobless rate were Churchill and Lyon. The 1,420 out of work in Churchill remains the same as in July but the percentage of the total unemployed declined 0.1 percent to 10.9 percent. Lyon, which has Nevada's worst unemployment rate, also went down 0.1 percent, finishing August at 17.3 percent jobless.

Douglas County's rate remained flat at 14.1 percent in August.

Bill Anderson, chief economist for the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, said the August report is further evidence the labor market isn't improving as many had hoped when the rate began decreasing at the start of the year. He said the battered construction industry remains a major contributor to the state's "economic stalemate."

Despite an 18.4 percent decline in construction-related taxable sales during fiscal 2010, Anderson said, total taxable sales posted a gain of 5.7 percent that year. He said that when construction numbers are removed from the calculations, the state's economy looks much more stable. At the worst point in the recession, 2009, Nevada lost 9 percent of its employment base, he said. Without construction losses, that would have been 7 percent.

Without construction losses, he said, this year total employment would have grown one-third of 1 percent.

Anderson said the percentage of those out of work for more than more than 26 weeks is now half of the total number out of work - nearly double the percentage of long-term unemployed two years ago.

"The ramifications of extended joblessness for this segment of the workforce are potentially profound and long-lasting," Anderson said. "When a person is out of work for a long period of time, skills and experience diminish, making it more difficult to find employment as time goes on."

While the Las Vegas reporting area added 800 jobs during the month, Reno-Sparks employment declined by 100 jobs. Over the course of this year, he said, employment there is down 3,300 jobs.

In Carson City, total employment was unchanged in August but, compared to a year ago, the total number of jobs is down 500. The total workforce in Carson City is 28,600, with some 3,600 looking for work.

In Reno-Sparks, 28,300 of the 216,700 in the workforce are jobless. In the Las Vegas reporting area, 135,700 of 952,700 are jobless.