The coronavirus pandemic has driven California’s unemployment rate to 15-point-5 percent for April, topping the worst of the Great Recession years of 2008 through 2010. It also hit an all-time high in Nevada County of 14-point-5 percent. Nearly half of all the jobs in the Leisure and Hospitality sector were wiped out, or 25-hundred-10. Retail Trade had the second-highest drop, but by a much more modest drop of 540. And Sheila Stock, a labor market analyst for the State Employment Development Department, says the May rate will be even higher, although not as dramatic..

And Stock says June should reflect a slight comeback from counties starting to reopen businesses and other sectors…

The previous highest unemployment rate in Nevada County was 12-point-2 percent, in March of 2010. The county’s rate is also now the 22nd lowest among the state’s 58 counties.