Las Vegas Trendlines

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Las Vegas-metro payrolls, September 2026

economy
labor
Published

October 21, 2026

Total nonfarm employment, Las Vegas metro, monthly NSA, 1990 to September 2026, ending near 1,190,500 jobs.

Nonfarm payroll jobs per 100 Las Vegas-metro residents, monthly, 2000 to September 2026: a peak of 52.2 in May 2006, a low of 34.0 in May 2020, now 49.5.

Las Vegas–Henderson–North Las Vegas employers reported 1,190,500 nonfarm jobs in September 2026 (not seasonally adjusted), up 20,200 — +1.7% — from a year earlier. Set against everyone who lives in the metro, that is 49.5 payroll jobs for every 100 residents, against 48.6 a year before.

The second chart is there because a count of jobs always grows in a growing region. Jobs per resident does not have to: it peaked at 52.2 in May 2006, fell to 34.0 in May 2020, and says whether the job machine is keeping up with the people arriving to use it.

It is not the employment rate, and the difference matters. The official rate counts people with work, by where they live, as a share of adults. This counts jobs at employers in the metro — a second job counts twice, and someone commuting in from outside the metro counts here — divided by every resident, children and retirees included. So an ageing population pulls it down with no change in the job market. Read the direction, not the level.

The population is the Census Bureau’s July 1 estimate for the same one-county metro, interpolated between years; the chart starts in 2000 because that is where the annual estimates on FRED begin. Because payrolls aren’t seasonally adjusted, the year-over-year change is the one to watch.

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics, Las Vegas–Henderson–North Las Vegas MSA, not seasonally adjusted, via FRED LASV832NAN; U.S. Census Bureau resident population estimates for the same MSA, via FRED LSVPOP, interpolated to monthly. The ratio is computed at read time. Auto-generated each build.