Unemployment rises slightly in county as labor force grows

Numbers don’t lie, but they don’t always speak clearly. To wit: Clark County keeps adding jobs, but the unemployment level stayed relatively flat in April, according to a state report released Tuesday.

“One thing that we’re seeing is that unemployment is still pretty high, and that seems to be because our labor force is growing pretty rapidly,” said Scott Bailey, regional economist with the state Employment Security Department. “We’ve had more people jumping into the labor force who have been on the sidelines.”

The county’s unemployment rate was 6.4 percent in April, a point higher than the month before and in April last year. The state rate in April was 5.8 percent, the same it’s been since December. Nationally, unemployment sat at 5 percent in April.

Seasonally adjusted, Clark County added 300 jobs in April, fueling a 4.1 percent job growth rate. That remains better than the growth rate for Washington, Oregon and the Portland metro area. The county growth rate is now more than twice the national average.

“We’re growing faster and have grown faster for a couple of years now,” Bailey said.

In the past 12 months, the county has added 6,000 new jobs.

And though a total of 1,300 jobs were added in April, adjusting that number for seasonal variation shows it’s the season of getting back to work.

“April is when spring really starts to be spring, so a lot of different activity picks up,” Bailey said.

That meant job gains in a variety of sectors. The biggest gains were in hospitality, construction, retail, business services and education and health care.

In the past year, big gains were also made in trade, transportation and utilities (1,000 jobs) and information services (300 jobs). Manufacturing ticked up slightly in the past year, adding 200 jobs.