Job recovery in the Las Vegas metropolitan area took a bit of a pause during second quarter. May employment was down by 200 jobs from the prior month, but still 21,300 higher than seen a year ago. This matches the annual pace of 21,300 jobs seen at the end of last year, but is below the average annual rate of 32,700 for the whole of 2015.

Over the past 12 months, the Southern California markets covered by this report added 122,800 new jobs, and the total number of people claiming unemployment insurance dropped by almost 204,000. With these changes, the unemployment rate has dropped by two percentage points from 6.3% to 4.3%.

As a whole, Oregon’s labor market remains stronger than it has been in decades. Job growth in the second quarter was somewhat muted, but this is nothing to be concerned about. Businesses have expanded to pre-recession levels, so at this point hiring tends to be cyclical rather than expansionary.

Washington State continues to see strong employment growth, outpacing national numbers with an annual rate of more than 3%. Interestingly enough, despite these substantial job gains, the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 5.8%. However, I’m not overly concerned about this because it’s largely due to a growing labor force rather than a declining job market.