EMPLOYMENT FOR EVERYONE The "trailing spouse" is not behind for long in Las Vegas' booming business climate.

In the past, Las Vegas has welcomed 7,000 new residents on a monthly basis. For every couple who moves here for a job, there is often one partner looking for work in an unfamiliar city with few, if any, contacts or job prospects.

For those latter partners, the job outlook isn’t dire. The unemployment rate in Las Vegas hit 12.3 percent in January, but that hasn’t stopped construction of hotels, high-rise buildings and other development projects, according to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR).

Though DETR reports that Nevada’s economy lost a number of jobs during the past year, the state of Nevada, overall, actually gained 240,000 jobs between 2002 and 2007. Some of the top growth industries are leisure and hospitality, education and health services, trade transportation, and professional and business services. As the state’s largest industry, leisure and hospitality added 1,200 jobs in 2008, showing that the demand is still there. And while the construction and real estate
markets are slow, health care and educational services are two industries that continue to hire — markets that were not prominent 15 years ago, says Michael Herman, director of staffing for Millennium Staffing Services in Las Vegas. “The influx of other industries has changed the market a lot,” he notes. “We used to be dominated by gaming, but other industries are increasing 10-fold.”

With so much going on in Las Vegas, the market continues to be highly competitive, Herman adds. “There is still an influx of lower-tiered workers, but when you get to positions that pay more than $40,000 a year, it is extremely competitive, and often agencies are recruiting from outside the
market,” he says. For this reason, Herman recommends that professionals seeking upper-level management or executive positions begin their search prior to moving to the city.

“Those positions take time to interview and be processed,” he points out. “They can be interviewing over the phone and networking for positions before they arrive.”

There are numerous job sites, including jobing.com, the Department of Employment, Nevada JobConnect and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where individuals can begin their search prior to relocating. The hospitality industry also is riding the Internet wave, says Bill Overly, manager of the Nevada JobConnect Career Center in Las Vegas. Casinos are required to complete background checks for all employees, making for a lot of back-and-forth before hiring. This has prompted most hotels to
create online application systems. “Most applications are done online, so they can accomplish that in months, weeks or days before moving here,” he says. “I can’t think of another industry that has used
technology better than hospitality for the purposes of recruiting.”

But if individuals wait until they arrive to look for work, there are many venues
available. Myriad staffing agencies like Millennium are full-service and others are industry-specific in areas like accounting, health care and executive searches. Herman says agencies allow individuals a fast track for networking, interviewing, evaluation and testing.

The JobConnect Career Center also functions much like an employment agency. The center provides job listings and placement, training and education, labor market information, career guidance and résumé preparation. There are three JobConnect locations in the area: Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson. Overly says anyone new to the city is wise to look in North Las Vegas and Henderson for work because they are within about 15 miles of Las Vegas and are equipped with their own chambers of commerce and other services.

Las Vegas is home to one of the largest chambers in the nation, which is another good place to network, Overly says. There are also job fairs and networking organizations from varied industries, including engineering, teaching and medicine that can be found through a quick Google search. Overly also recommends contacting local colleges and universities to network and find resources in specialty areas. He says the University of Nevada, Las Vegas has a strong engineering program, and the College of Southern Nevada has nursing and health care programs.

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