Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Friday, July 17, 2009 | 7:17 a.m.
Sun Topics
CARSON CITY – Unemployment soared in Clark County in June, with nearly 125,000 people out of work as the state continued on its record pace of unemployment.
The state report, released today, says the jobless rate in the Las Vegas area reached 12.3 percent in June, compared to 11.1 percent in the previous month.
There were 124,900 unemployed, compared to 62,500 in the same month of 2008 and 12,500 higher than in May this year.
For the second straight month, the state set a record in unemployment, rising to 12 percent with an estimated 169,800 jobless, nearly double the 87,300 of a year ago.
“Nevada is experiencing the backlash from slowed consumer spending and declining visitor volume,” said Bill Anderson, chief economist for the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.
“High gas prices have a severe effect on tourism visitation numbers and could pose serious threats to an economic recovery going forward,” he said.
Employment in construction and in casinos and hotels in Clark County continued to fall in the month-to-month comparisons. The department said there were 76,700 workers in construction, down 700 from May and 19,000 lower than a year ago.
The numbers working in hotel-casinos dropped to 154,900 in June or 800 fewer than in May. A year ago there were 170,500 people working in this industry in June.
Employment in manufacturing dropped by 100 workers to 23,900 in June compared to May.
One bright spot was in trade, transportation and utilities where employment rose to 155,500, up 300 workers from May.
The department reported the jobless rate in the Reno-Sparks area increased from 11.1 percent to 11.8 percent in June with 26,800 unemployed. That compares with June 2008 when there were 14,500 jobless.
Unemployment in Carson City increased from 10.7 percent in May to 11.5 percent in June with 3,500 people out of work. The jobless rate in Elko and Eureka Counties rose from 5.9 percent in May to 6.6 percent in June.
Anderson said, “There is some sentiment that the U.S. economy may be near the bottom of the recession. Unfortunately May brought with it news suggesting that economic conditions in Nevada remain extremely weak.”
He said employment historically is a lagging indicator of the economy’s health.
“Hence, when a recovery does take hold in Nevada, labor market conditions will likely not respond immediately. This recession has hit the state extremely hard.”
He said only six states in April had a higher jobless rate and the May figures have not been released by all states.
but...
i thought vegas was "recession proof".
it's going to hit 20%.
the national economy isn't getting any better and that's less and less people with money to blow on a vegas weekend.
Looking at the number of jobless applicants applying for City Center employment rather throws a monkey wrench into government figures bringing the jobless percentage much higher. Do the math.
Would now be a good time to seriously begin thinking about job creation outside of hospitality and tourism?
Politicians claim that green jobs are the silver bullet solution, but at this rate we're heading straight for a "too little too late" scenario.
Don't worry, as soon as Obama finishes spending a trillion dollars on government run health care and remaking the USA into a worker's paradise, the green jobs those stimulus funds were spent to create will start sprouting up all over Southern Nevada, like the green shoots of a recovering national economy.
The Democrats will not let a great crisis go to waste. No one is going back to work until they finish socially engineering the US into another Netherlands.
Official unemployment figures are almost worthless.
The way the government sees it, you're only unemployed if you're "actively looking for work." So if you're tired of looking and give up, you're magically removed from the unemployed pool -- and the official unemployment figure is misleadingly low as a result.
A few months later, you think things are getting better, so you start looking again. Boom! You're magically "unemployed" again -- and the unemployment rate suddenly jumps, as thousands of once-discouraged workers do exactly what you're doing. (Which is why unemployment rates tend to jump at the end of a recession.)
I wish someone would do an in-depth analysis of exactly what's going on in our labor market. Are these increases primarily the result of long-unemployed people resuming their job searches, or big job cuts? Neither is good, but job cuts are considerably worse than more people looking for work. One is an indicator of continuing contraction; the other is an indicator of an economy bouncing at the bottom.
But a one-month shift in the unemployment number? That tells you almost nothing.
that number also doesn't take into account "underemployment" and all the workers that have to take a few days a month off without pay.
it just looks bad for vegas both from a local standpoint and a national standpoint.
for us to do good locally, we need people do be doing well nationally and that's just not happening.
at least gas prices are lower.
for 6 of 8 years Bush and a Republican senate and house did such a great job with the economy right?
What a joke. This recession has its roots in 800 billion of wasted money in Iraq. Now we get to flush a trillion on the cavemen of Afghanistan. Which is where the Soviets went down the tubes. Thats what bankrupted the USSR in large measure not "StarWars" and Reagan.
recession? what recession?
hard times? what hard times?
everywhere I look I see people going back to work.
- Joe Biden
"The way the government sees it, you're only unemployed if you're "actively looking for work." So if you're tired of looking and give up, you're magically removed from the unemployed pool -- and the official unemployment figure is misleadingly low as a result."
anonymous-guy:
Unless those who have given up are NO LONGER COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT, you don't know what you're talking about! If those "given up" people have someone supporting them, have won Megabucks, or are living in a shopping cart with no visible financial means and have no reason to collect unemployment - everyone collecting unemployment is INCLUDED in those numbers and there are thousands collecting right now. How do you think they arrive at those figures????? Pick them out of a hat? BTW - when collecting unemployment - you cannot just stop looking because you've given up. DETR can ask and has asked for documentation that you actually have been actively seeking employment on a weekly basis. If you cannot come up with proof - you're free ride is going to come to an end. Even unemployment comes with a price. It is not a free ride. You even have to pay income tax on unemployment earnings.
Unfortunately, I am sure Las Vegas has its share of slackers and scammers and know how to work the system so they get a free ride on our dime but considering filing for unemployment requires more than a fake ID, there may not be that many after all.
If you are not happy with the unemployment rates now, wait until Obamacare passes!
We all saw and can see how well things went under the bush idiocy and gop congressional control.
While they could have been passing their supposed great fixes, they decided the greatest issues were flag burning, gay marriage and abortion rights.
Nice job gop, no wonder you got your heads handed to you in 2008, and with no plans ideas or clues.
Why would anyone vote gop in the next election, that is IF (big IF) the gop has anyone left to run for office not mired in scandal or stupidity.
I must have missed all of the flag burning and abortion rights violations.
i love how democrats ignore all economic science and theory and fall back on the "blame bush" stance.
the war in iraq was costly, of course, but that is maybe 1% of the cause of what's going on.
YOUR party strong-armed lenders into giving out loans to people that really shouldn't have had them and sure enough...those loans went down the tubes, that brought home prices down and started THAT spiral.
then your ignorant and arrogant union brothers wanted more and more money for jobs that could be done overseas for 60% less and that pushed manufacturing jobs overseas, and now those jobs are GONE and that's the huge sucking hole in our economy.
those manufacturing jobs are gone. for good. there are no jobs for those workers to go to so they just stay in the unemployment line.
now that sales tax revenue is down, there is no money for the liberal social programs, but we can't cut those, so now we have to lay off and give unpaid days off work to government workers.
so they have that much less "fun money" for trips to vegas.
this town is cooked.
i love it, but when our mayor was out chasing sports teams, he should have been trying to get computer and medical jobs here.
Katie:
"Unless those who have given up are NO LONGER COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT, you don't know what you're talking about!"
No young lady you do not know what YOU are talking about. The unemployment rate is not calculated using the number of people collecting unemployment insurance. The unemployment rate is determined via a monthly survey done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is a well known fact that the survey does not count people who are not actively looking for work or self-employed/contract workers who are working only sporadically.
Katie:
Quoting from the DETR release this morning:
"At 12 percent, an estimated 169,800 Nevadans found themselves unemployed and ACTIVELY SEEKING WORK."
That is how DETR measures official unemployment. That is how the federal government determines unemployment. But in the real world, that's hardly an all-encompassing definition of unemployment. If I'm out of work when my official DETR benefits run out, I'm just as unemployed as I was the month before, even if the government takes me out of the "officially unemployed" pool.
And if the DETR tells me I don't qualify for benefits at all, I'm just as unemployed as a neighbor who did qualify for those checks -- even if he's counted by Nevada as "unemployed" and I'm not.
Official US unemployment (U-3) was 9.5% in June. But if you add in "underemployed" and "discouraged" workers (U-6), unemployment was 16.5% in June.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t...
But hey, I don't know what I'm talking about, right?
You could have fooled me.....I am from Michigan where unemploymeht state wide is nearing 16% and in the metro Detroit area it is closer to 26%.
I recently visited the Vegas area and was surprised by the number of Help Wanted signs at fast food restaurants, sit down restaurants, retail stores like Target, JCPenneys, Kohls, Albertsons etc... saw Help Wanted signs in industrial and warehouse areas. What up with that unemployment figure?
The only thing I can figure is the void left by construction companies.
Things that make you go hmmmmm..........
stevem,
Actually the cause of the financial crisis was multiple events. Primarily the unregulated free market of credit default swaps and removal of the 14:1 leverage limits. Brought to you by Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson, respectively.
Not to mention the repeal of Glass-Stegall really got the credit ball rolling as it eroded the line between banking and investing. Nevermind "PayGo" budgeting has been absent the last 8 years. Nevermind that our country as a whole has spent more than it has made for the last few decades. Don't belive me look at consumer debt and national debt. That's not prosperity, that's future (and current) financial burden.
It's not a Republican or Democrat to blame, but it's all of us. We spent more than we made, thought our houses were ATMs and then tried to find someone to blame when it all hit the fan. Did some people get burned by circumstances, yes, but for the majority that wasn't the case.
see all the bushies are out. we all know their cure for all-tax cuts for the wealthy. henderson and these other nut cases could easily fill glen beck's shoes. if any of you rightwingnuts are collecting social security are benefiting from medicare, give it back, socialist programs. kids getting help for college, veterens benefits, give it back, socialists programs.
Obama is the downfall. have a good weekend everyone! Peace
formervegas76 seems to have all the answers, care to share your insight on unemployment?
To stevem:
If this is all a deocratic problem, then why didn't the gop fix things when they had the senate & house from 1994 to 2006, and even when the gop rules both houses of congress and the White House from 2000 to 2006?!?!?!
You had all 3 and what did the gop accomplish?? Lying the US into a costly war with no end was one the main results.
Was it a lack of ideas and plans, like the current crop of republican'ts???
I'm still waiting to hear ONE gop centric idea that isn't "tax cuts"....anyone have a clue or idea in the gop???
Good thing we have 250,000 illegals to pick up the slack for all those jobs no one in Clark County will take, haha. Wait, what am I saying, Chairman Maobama, the Las Vegas Land Swindler, Country Club Republicans, and local law enforcement are all very proactive to ensure that illegals are kicked out of Clark County, which would, presumably, considerably free up the local job market for a hiring pool that is lawfully authorized to work in Las Vegas.
Why, even our own Attorney General issued an opinion that essentially eviscerates any effort to punish employers for hiring illegals, so she must really be interested in trying to enforce laws that improve the quality of life for all job-seeking, unemployed Nevadans, too, right?
Those factors, coupled with the efforts of our crack legislators to protect the service industry jobs from people who are not entitled to have them makes it clear to me that all this unemployment
rate stuff must be nothing but a big bunch of hooey.
After all, like I said, the 250,000 illegals here in Clark County are only doing jobs Americans won't!
PS: While you're looking for work, take comfort in the fact that Congress just voted down an amendment that would exclude illegals from government run Obamacare. So, yay for that!!
This is getting old. The Cons need to start walking the walk. Nobody likes a trash talker who can't back it up.
Time for the 'baggers to quit paying taxes, and boycott all tax-related public services. All talk, no action. Cluck, cluck, cluck!
Prisons are privatized now, so the Cons will feel right at home.
To Narcissa:
If you are in a position to be losing jobs to illegals and bascially peon labor, maybe it's time you take stock of your own miserable existence and do something about it.
For starters, try finishing high school, then maybe try a community college.
The days of when you could earn an ok, living being on the dumb end of a shovel are over. As Dean Vernon Wormer said in the movie Animal House: "Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son"
You should heed those wise words!!!
Wow....I thought for sure that the extra $20 a week that Obama is giving to us would prevent this.
I guess not.
I keep hearing that extending unemployment benefits has like a 1,000,000x effect on the economy.
I guess not.
Obama has either created or saved over 132,302,392 ka-trillion jobs according to his personal calculator.
I guess not...really.
OBAMA...FOCUSED ON THE ECONOMY....LIKE A LASER.
Umm, yeah, Bert, thanks for the stellar carreer advice, but by most people standards, I think I've managed to do pretty ok, between my law school degree and four years at one of the Seven Sisters.
I also notice you don't address the actual issue of service industry jobs, among others, being lost by lawful residents and American citizems to illegals.
Your "argument" isn't even coherent. How does my, or anyone else's, educational path change the fact that lawfully present, unemployed Nevadans have lost and continue to lose decent jobs to illegal aliens because of power hungry pols and employers that think that we, the American
taxpayer, should have to subsidize their business endeavors?
The fact that you not only can quote from Animal House, but use it as part of your "argument"
explains a lot and pretty mch tells me everything I need to know about YOUR situation.
Trust me when I tell you that circumstances in my life are such that the unemployment rate here, or
anywhere else for that matter, won't impact me and certainly not the way in which I know you wish
it would.
Part of it is attributable to having worked really hard and played by the rules (such as spending
enough time studying to learn that quoting 'Animal House' in an argument would only embarrass
me). Part of it is attributable to other stuff, as well, which is obviously none of your business.
But that doesn't mean I can't feel outraged for Nevadans that are deservedly proud of their skills and the services they provide on the front line to help make our city a world class destination. Many of them would give anything for a decent service-related industry job and they aren't going to get it because an illegal alien got it, instead.
Hey ... what's wrong with "Animal House." ???
can't we all just get along?
- Rodney King
recession? I still don't see a recession?
hard times? what hard times? I still don't see any hard times?
we just need to give this stimulus a chance to work - another 10 trillion should be enough to jump start the economy....
ya'know, people ask me, they say Joe, are u tellin' me we gotta spend more to NOT go bankrupt? and I say, EXACTLY, we sure do!
- Joe Biden
Syracuse Law School class of '68
class rank 76th of 85
(the top 50% of my class, umm, I mean the top 50% of the last 9 people, you know....)
no wait I did better than I thought!!! I now mean the top 50% of the last 20 people!!!
yeah that's it!!!
- Joe Biden
so it was reagan's fault?
lmao.
the 1980's was one of the largest and longest periods of expansion and wealth in the history of our country.
i think it's the mormons' fault because they buy coffee and that made starbucks fail.
stevem
you've nailed it! it's a VAST RIGHT WING CONSPIRACY!!!!
With the loss of jobs, the loss of tourist revenue, the loss of homes, and the loss of vast amounts of wealth, it's nice to see that one thing remains recession proof: our insatiable desire to blame people we don't like for all the bad things that happen to us.
Wow, Papil, I never thought I'd see the day when someone would take the time to defend the destructive actions of Country Club Republicans, greedy employers, and self-serving liberal Democrats, all of whom are acting with full knowledge of the consequence of their actions, which is in direct contravention of the well-being and financial security of the American worker and legal resident,
As far as I can read from these posts, those are the selfish parties towards whom outrage has been directed.
Sad that you find their critics so abhorrent, but I guess, as they say, there is a lid for every pot.
Stevem, I usually agree with what write but I would suggest you go back and look at some of the speeches Jimmy Carter gave to the American people. He was a buzzkill and American's didn't want to hear anything that would end the party of mass consumption and over exuberance. Reagan used Carters warnings as leverage for his own political gain and told the American people that the party could go on forever. 30 years later, this is where we are and Carters buzzkill warning signs and speeches have never rung more true.
Oohh how the tables have turned!
stevem you are definately on a roll this morning, be careful your neck doesn't snap before you reach the bottom of the hill.
Where do you get that these wars in the middle east is 1% of the problem? These occupations in the middle east are costing taxpayers around 750 billion dollars, and you say its only 1% of the problem.
If it looks like a rat, smells like a rat, talks like a rat, it must be a rat. Since I've never met you and (thank god) never smelled you, you get credit on those two descriptions, but talking like a rat... I know you are jealous of union workers because you don't make union wages, you don't have union medical coverage and you don't have a union retirement plan. I sense alot of jealousy. You say the reason big industry outsourced their businesses to overseas markets was to rid themselves of paying their workers a union wage? So, no corps. who outsourced were paying a non-union wage?
You put our hard working mayor down because he wants to get a professional sports team here in Vegas? How much revenue do you suppose we would reel in if we had a professional sports team here?
You'd better pull your head out side and give your brain some sunshine.
Just to let the interested Americans know, contact Sheriff Gillespie(sheriff@lvmpd.com) and let him know that you back him on approving the 287(g) program. This is where local law enforcement can help Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, I.C.E., to rid our community of criminal illegals who are taking the jobs away from our citizens that we need so bad. We now have over 150,000 citizens on the breadlines here in Clark County. How many more are going to bite the dust before our feds can get help from local law enforcement. The ACLU is looking to stop this program, calling it unconstitutional. I'm confused on that one. Ridding our country of illegal immigrant felons is unconstitutional? They should change their names to the Illegal Aliens Civil Liberties Union. They certainly aren't helping any Americans.
dear liberals:
http://www.djindexes.com/mdsidx/download...
now, you STILL want to argue with me?
steveyem you do a good enough job flubbing up by yourself.
haha.
the chart i linked to show the stock market went up during reagan's term.
period.
instead of sucking it up and dealing with the FACT it illustrates, you use silly words like "neocon" and then try to attach data from CLINTON'S term to the argument.
we were talking about REAGAN, idiots. not bush or clinton.
you've lost your argument about WEALTH generation during REAGAN'S term so you have to create and extend the argument by adding all that stuff about CLINTON in there.
if you want to play THAT game, how well has the stock market been doing during YOUR current messiah, obama?
don't use the cop-out that he inherited bush's mess because if you point to how it went up during CLINTON'S term and use that as a way to pound your chest, then by the SAME line of thinking, OBAMA has to take credit for the CURRENT state of the stock market.
we can play the "blame the administration before you" game all the way back to george washington.
based PURELY on the dow jones average during REAGAN'S term ( without all your silly "he did this and did that" nonsense ) the stock market went up.
of COURSE the market went up during clinton's term due to the tech / internet bubble in 1998 - 1999. so, when that crashed...during bush's term, you liberals blame bush for it.
the unemployment rate will get worse because you can't raise taxes on businesses and those "evil rich people" during a recession.
my company is already doing poorly...i can't afford to hire more workers...and now you want to take even MORE of my money from me for a health plan?
ya, ok.
OBAMA FOCUSED ON THE ECONOMY....LIKE A...LASER BEAM.
lol.....his $20 a week giveaway is having a tremedous effect on the economy and also add the magical effect of extending unemployment benefits (some claim that is a 30x effect on the economy).
According to the Obama calculator he has created or saved ...103,832,839 ka-trillon jobs.
I think Biden for just one did not stick his foot in his mouth when he said the Obama adminstration was clueless about economy.
Obama number priority ain't the economy.
It is health care or cap-n-trade or someother BS.
OBAMA FOCUSED ON THE ECONOMY LIKE A LASER BEAM.
lol
You said it Gordon!
You all like talking politics, but that is not the heart of the problem in Las Vegas.
The real issue in Las Vegas is that people started to believe that anyone with essenentially no skills could make 50k or more per year. Sorry, but flipping cards, parking cars, or bringing food to tables is not a high skill job and can only support such a big salary when the economy was so artifically inflated by the real estate bubble.
I think its fair to blame politicians amongst others for the bubble in the first place, but the bubble just perpetuated a myth that anyone with no skills could make a good salary, buy a big house, etc.
Laniac I beg to differ. A good friend of mine was making between One and two thousand per week as a showroom waiter in Lake Tahoe back in the late sixties.
Exactly laniac... Las Vegas was built on a frivolous concept that a person could go to work and earn a living. Now it's time to pay the piper, skilled or not!
My 4 year degree and years of experience turned out to be totally worthless as well! I think a lot of those "unskilled" jobs were here before the G'Damn bubble burst, however.
For those who blame the Dems, you're right. For those who blame the GOP, your also right. They both could care less about controlling our governments spending. The problem is that when the dollar is worth zero, we all have a problem. Which one of our politicians are even talking about this disaster? Ron Paul informed us last September that our dollar was only worth .04 cents, But our government keeps on spending and spending.
The lobbyist and big business loves what our elected officials are doing. Of course some of our elected officials have ties with big business. You don't say....................
http://www.numbersusa.com/petition?ID=4&...
Right on frmmasmind
It's a culmination of all prior administrations, Republican and Democrat, people. Let's stop blaming, bitching, complaining and maybe think of some way to help OURSELVES!!!
and what if all those things WERE true?
it still would not negate the fact that during the reagan term, the stock market went up.
it's funny. you tell ME to get a life, yet you seem to have nothing better to do on a sunday afternoon than go back to all my old postings.
now THAT is sad.
instead of dealing with the TRUTH and FACT that the stock market went up during the reagan term, you have a temper tantrum.
oh, and sports teams do VERY little to bring revenue TO a city.
it just takes money FROM the people that live in the city and creates more $8.00 per hour jobs.
Oh steveym you da smart one. I guess a professional sports team wouldn't bring any revenue to sports books around the valley, they wouldn't need any advertising so that would count out the advertising/promotional companies getting any work. They would probably play their season games in sports parks around the valley so scratch building any sports arenas to house their games. Of course without a stadium they would need no groundskeepers or anyone who would be needed to work in the stadium before ,during or after game time. Yes steveym, you be da brilliant one.