Numbers game confuses jobless data

While the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell 0.4 percent to 12.6 percent in December, the raw, unadjusted rate actually increased 0.2 percentage points to 12.4 percent.

Economist Bill Anderson of the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said that has confused a lot of people. He said seasonal adjustments take into account such things as, in December, holiday hiring by retailers. The data isn't available at the county level to make those adjustments so the best comparison, he said, is to the unadjusted state rate.

In Las Vegas, the unadjusted rate increased 0.3 percent to 12.7 percent, the same amount in Reno-Sparks to 11.9 percent, and 0.3 percent in the Carson City reporting area to 12.2 percent.

Despite the confusion in December's numbers, Anderson said, the overall unemployment situation showed steady if slow improvement in 2011 compared to 2010. The statewide rate averaged 13.1 percent in 2011, down nearly 2 percentage points from 2010's average of 14.9 percent. In Reno and Carson City, the 2010 rate of 14.1 percent fell to 12.5 percent for 2011.

Anderson said the numbers appear "to be quite consistent with continued modest improvement in the economy."

But he said December was a step back.

"Total unadjusted nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 8,500 from November to December, erasing much of the gains experienced over the fall," Anderson said.

Retail trade lost 1,300 jobs.

Leisure and hospitality employers cut 3,100 jobs; professional and business services lost 900 jobs; and health care and related services lost 1,600 jobs.

But the 12 percent rate isn't the whole story. The monthly numbers track only those without jobs who are still looking for work.

"As unemployed workers give up their job search or move beyond Nevada's borders, the labor force declines and unemployment falls," Anderson said.

Various economists including Anderson have estimated the actual total unemployment at more than 20 percent.

In Carson City, for example, the 29,100-member workforce of December 2010 is now down to 28,100.

In Churchill County, 1,230 of the 12,610 member workforce are jobless, a 9.8 percent rate. In Douglas, the rate is 13.8 percent with 2,860 of 20,790 out of work.

Lyon County still has the state's highest unemployment rate - 16.1 percent, with 21,590 in the workforce and 3,480 of them jobless.