Leisure/hospitality employment still only 4/5 what it was pre-pandemic

There were nearly 100,000 more jobs in Nevada last month than there were the previous October, but the workforce is still about 80,000 jobs shy of pre-pandemic levels, with jobs failing to return in the leisure and hospitality sector accounting for the shortfall, according to data announced by the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation Thursday.

DETR’s October 2021 employment report puts the total workforce at 1,363,900.

The size of the state’s workforce peaked in February 2020 at 1,442,800.

The largest job growth over the last year was in the state’s largest pre-pandemic workforce sector, leisure and hospitality, with nearly 35,000 more jobs than in October 2020. That brought the total size of the workforce to 279,700. But that’s still roughly 77,000 jobs shy of the sector’s pre-pandemic total of 356,500.

Edging out leisure and hospitality as the state’s largest employment sector in October 2021 was trade, transportation and utilities, a sector that includes what has been one of Nevada’s and the nation’s most common occupations for decades, retail trade. The sector added 18,500 jobs over the prior 12 months, returning to a total workforce size of 283,000, same as on the eve of the pandemic in February 2020.

Read more: https://www.nevadacurrent.com/blog/leisure-hospitality-employment-still-only-4-5-what-it-was-pre-pandemic/