Nevada County’s unemployment rate continues trending toward pre-pandemic numbers. The October rate dropped another two-tenths of a point, from September, to four-point-five percent. That’s also over two points better than a year ago. It’s also the tenth-lowest rate among the state’s 58 counties. Meanwhile, this is the time of year when you could expect to find more temporary holiday season jobs. But it’s unclear if even the growing number of permanent jobs available will be filled. Phelan Burns is a business services representative with the Alliance For Workforce Development in Grass Valley….

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Burns says the Health Sector continues to be a concern…

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Employment in the lower-paying Retail Trade sector is still dropping, and is now at four-thousand jobs. But that’s still an improvement of 260 from a year ago. Another relatively low-paying sector, Leisure and Hospitality, lost 70 jobs from the month before. But that was also a gain of 610 from October of 2020, when there were a lot of COVID restrictions in place. Local Government had the biggest monthly numerical increase of 110 jobs.