Another minor drop in Nevada County’s unemployment rate. At three-point-seven-percent, in December, that’s a three-tenths-of-a-point decline, from November. But Phelan Burns, the business service representative with the Alliance for Workforce Development in Grass Valley, says it’s a more notable three-point drop from a year ago…

click to listen to Phelan Burns

It’s also the eighth-lowest rate among the state’s 58 counties. But Burns says a continued low labor force, brought on by the pandemic, also remains a factor in the numbers…

click to listen to Phelan Burns

Burns says among the job sectors with a lot of openings is health care, especially nurses and caregivers. Also, landscaping. Leisure and Hospitality showed the largest monthly employment gain. And it was mostly seasonal employment. Burns says that could be mainly from all the ski resorts able to open from the large snowstorms that hit in December.