Welcome to Nevada: The State With the Nation’s Highest Unemployment Rate

For minorities in the state (as in the country overall), unemployment is particularly burdensome.

Unemployment for Nevada’s African-Americans clocked in at 18.6 percent in July, while 15.9 percent of Hispanics were jobless (the rate is 12.9 percent for whites).

However, that it mild compared to the jobs crisis among young people -- Nevadans between the age of 16 and 24 had a jobless rate of 22.1 percent in July, and this figure has remained at this level for more than a year.

The state’s jobs base has been shriveling up for more than a year.

Brian Gordon, a principal with the Las Vegas consulting and research firm Applied Analysis, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper: “From the lows we saw during the recession, we have not seen any material gains overall, so we're continuing to climb out of a very big hole. The recovery cycle is elongated and will be measured in years and not months, so we have a lot of work to do in terms of the overall job market.''

Steve Brown, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, told the paper he’s not even sure that southern Nevada ever emerged from the national recession.

"I'm not sure I'd say we have a recovery," he said. "I'd say we have the elements of a recovery. It's not something that seems to be extending to all areas of the economy, and the areas that are doing well aren't doing well enough, at least in terms of employment, to offset losses elsewhere."

Nevada possesses some innate structural characteristics that leaves it vulnerable to economic crises. The state’s economy is dependent upon essentially three industries: casino gambling/tourism, construction, and mining -- the first two are highly volatile, while the third is concentrated far outside of Las Vegas (where most of the state’s population lives).

Without the kind of industrial diversity that some other states enjoy, Nevada’s employment picture is subject to wild swings – the situation is somewhat analogous to Detroit, Michigan’s heavy reliance on the auto industry.