ECONOMY: State's jobless rate at 14-year high

Construction, casinos see Southern Nevada job bases dwindle

June 21, 2008 - As a world-class culinary destination, Las Vegas should offer a buffet of job opportunities for food-and-beverage worker Jeff Hill.

Instead of feasting on multiple offers, though, Hill finds little appetite for new hires among local hotels and restaurants.

Friday's numbers from the state's Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation reveal just how much competition Hill faces.

Statistics show Nevada's unemployment rate leapt half a percent from April to May, rising from 5.7 percent to a 14-year high of 6.2 percent. That's up from 4.7 percent in the same month a year earlier, and it also bests the national jobless rate of 5.5 percent.

In Las Vegas, unemployment vaulted from 5.5 percent in April to 5.9 percent in May. The share of Las Vegans out of work in May 2007 totaled 4.2 percent by comparison.

Southern Nevada's two biggest employment sectors, hotel-casinos and construction, reported shrinking job bases. Employment inside area resorts fell 1.3 percent year over year in May, while positions in construction dropped 9.7 percent in the same period.

Service-sector jobs grew at a flat 0.3 percent pace, while jobs in government rose 3.1 percent.

State officials attributed May's surge in joblessness to three factors: a long-term housing slowdown, skyrocketing fuel prices and a seasonal bump in job seekers thanks to the end of the school year.

The housing slump, which has seen new-home sales in the Las Vegas Valley drop below 1,000 units a month for most of 2008, has meant fewer jobs for construction workers.

Record gasoline prices above $4 a gallon have curbed drive-in traffic to Las Vegas by 7.8 percent compared with inbound car trips a year ago, while passenger counts at McCarran International Airport were off 5.5 percent. The drop in visitors has hurt local casinos, which have announced hundreds of layoffs in recent months.

What's more, high-school students, college graduates and teachers looking for summer work hit the labor market in May, swelling the ranks of job hunters even as the retail, construction and hospitality posts such population segments typically take failed to materialize.

May's results lay to rest the "myth" that Nevada feels economic torpor less, and for shorter periods, than the rest of the country, said Jered McDonald, an economist with the employment department.

"Our economy is based on tourism and retail, and when people have less money to put into those sectors, we're going to see an employment decline," McDonald said. "We have historically high gasoline prices, and right now it looks like that's coming home to roost."

But Brian Gordon, a principal in economic-research firm Applied Analysis, said it's tough to draw broader conclusions from the current downturn because it comes from a unique coalescence of factors, including a bust in record housing prices and a cyclical dip in resort openings.

"I think there's some validity to the concept that Las Vegas is both resourceful and resilient, but we have several factors creating a negative situation," Gordon said. "We never saw peaks in the housing market like the ones we had, and we'll probably never see those kinds of peaks again. We've changed from record highs to modest lows, and the degree of that change plays a role (in employment trends)."

That perfect storm of economic turmoil has ensnared Irma Eninger.

Eninger lost her $15-an-hour job about a month ago, when the family who employed her as a caregiver for their children let her go.

Eninger, who sat inside Nevada JobConnect Friday morning, had worked for the family for 11/2 years. She's hoping to apply her 20 years of work experience to a job in either food preparation or child care.

But Eninger grapples with more than mere job loss. She and her husband bought a $300,000 home in North Las Vegas in 2005 using an option adjustable-rate mortgage, and the interest rate has jumped to 8.5 percent. It could go to 12 percent in coming months. The couple listed the property recently at $180,000, just more than half of what they bought it for three years ago. Savings help cover Eninger's expenses, but her family has also cut back, spending virtually nothing on dining out and shopping.

"It's really bad," said Eninger, 48. "I have no job, and everything is expensive, especially gas prices."

Perhaps it's no consolation to Hill, Eninger and other unemployed workers, but the state has posted worse labor markets.

May's joblessness falls short of the highest unemployment levels in Nevada history. You'd have to visit the 1980s, when recession-era unemployment reached 10 percent or so, to find the biggest share of workers without jobs, McDonald said.

But May's unemployment ranked as the state's highest since May 1994, when the portion of jobless Nevadans also registered 6.2 percent.

McDonald said 1994 and 2008 share similarities beyond job loss.