Labor markets in the United States entered 2023 on a long-run period of growth coming out of the pandemic. Employment numbers at both the national and state levels have made great strides since the onset of the pandemic, but while they have exceeded pre-pandemic levels in raw numerical terms, they have yet to recover fully to their pre-pandemic growth trends. 

In December 2019, U.S. employment measured at 152.8 million. While that number has grown dramatically since bottoming out at 130.2 million in April 2020, compound annual growth over the past three years has averaged 0.5 percent, less than half the long-term annual growth rate of 1.3 percent over the previous 10 years. The Silver State has followed a similar trend, with impressive growth since the pandemic but with some distance left to return to the pre-pandemic trendline. In December 2022, Nevada employment totaled 1.51 million, up 5.6 percent over December 2021. As with the national data, the 0.7 percent average annual growth rate over the last three years was well below the 10-year growth rate of 2.5 percent, leaving the current
labor market short of the long-term trend.

Leisure and hospitality sector employment lead the way for Nevada employment, accounting for 22.8 percent of statewide employment. However, there were 3,000 fewer (-0.2 percent) jobs in the industry compared to December 2019. While the leisure and hospitality sector had fewer jobs since the onset of the pandemic, the trade, transportation, and utilities sector expanded by 17,000 jobs (+1.5 percent) over the past three years, solidifying the sector’s rank as the second-largest employment sector in the state. Professional and business services employment in Nevada grew 0.7 percent over the last three years, maintaining the category’s place as the thirdlargest employment sector with 216,000 jobs. During the same time, government and education and health services employment increased in lockstep over the past three years with each sector growing 0.6 percent to 165,000 jobs by December 2022.

Click here to download the report and read more.