Carson jobless rate up to 13.5%

The statewide unemployment rate dipped below 13 percent in January, finishing the month at 12.7 percent.

However, Carson City's jobless rate jumped by seven-tenths to 13.5 percent.

In Carson City, 3,800 out of 27,900 are jobless. Continued declines in government employment were responsible in Carson City as the state reported a near 300-worker decrease and Carson City a small drop of less than 100, according to Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation records.

The total number of Nevadans looking for work was flat at 174,700 but Economist Bill Anderson of the DETR said employers added a net of 1,800 jobs during the month. That's the seasonally adjusted rate. The raw rate actually increased one-tenth to 13 percent.

"It marks the 12th time in the past 13 months that employment has grown on a year-over-year basis," Anderson said.

Those facts indicate that some workers who had given up looking for a job have returned to the job market.

He said when the partially unemployed and discouraged workers not seeking a job are counted, the actual number of people out of work is 22.7 percent in Nevada.

Anderson said, however, the improvement was in the Las Vegas reporting area, not the north. While Southern Nevada unemployment dropped from 13.3 to 13.1 in January, the rate increased by six-tenths in the Reno-Sparks area to 13 percent.

But Elliott Parker, chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Nevada, Reno, questioned the state's assessment that the report shows economic improvement.

"The labor force survey says the labor force declined by 7,000 jobs since December, or 13,000, if we don't adjust for seasonality and the normal holiday bump," Parker said. "Employment fell by 12,000 workers, 2,000 more than normal. So the unemployment rate continued to decline only because we lost more people from the workforce than jobs. That is completely different than what is happening at the national level."

Continued declines in government employment were responsible in Carson City as the state reported a near 300-worker decrease and Carson City a small drop of less than 100, according to DETR records.

But during the past year, Reno's unemployment is down 1.2 percent and the capital's by a percent.

In the Reno area there are 28,900 out of work in a labor force of 222,400. In Churchill County, the rate increased from 10.5 to 11 percent with about 1,430 looking for work in a labor force of 12,950.

Douglas County saw solid improvement from December to January with the rate dropping from 14.5 percent to 14.1 percent and the number of jobless from 3,180 to 2,970.

Lyon County suffered an increase from 17.2 percent to 17.6 percent in January with 3,940 of 22,310 out of work.

• The Associated Press contributed to this report.