Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) economist Jered McDonald called 2009 a bad year as unemployment rates jumped.

December continued that trend as the statewide jobless rate increased to 13 percent, just three-tenths shy of September’s all-time high of 13.3 percent.

The Reno-Sparks area followed suit with a 1.3 percent climb to a 12.7 percent unemployment rate.

In addition, seasonal hiring numbers took a nosedive with fewer employers bringing on help for the normally busy retail season. The state department announced that retailers hired for about 3,000 seasonal positions this year, about half of what was seen for those same business sectors between 2000 and 2007.

Reno-Sparks jobs are down by 13,300 in the past year, according to DETR reports.

All industries suffered losses except for education and health services, McDonald said.

“In health services, in which we have a maturing population, there’s more demand for hospitals and doctors,” he said.

Education, for DETR’s purposes, refers to those private businesses that provide training. With so many people out of work right now, McDonald said, residents are spending their money at places such as Morrison University in Reno, to be trained for certain jobs.

From 2008 to 2009, 76,100 Nevadan jobs were lost. In 2009, unemployment grew by five percentage points to 72,600 in the Silver State. McDonald said significant improvement is not likely anytime soon.

“We expect to lose more jobs, but not quite as much,” he said. “We won’t see employment growth until 2012. I think the job market bottomed out in 2009 and it will slowly improve maybe by the middle of 2011.”

McDonald said the Reno-Sparks area temporarily created about 700 positions for the holidays between October and December with demographics ranging across the board.

“Maybe in the past, teens would have taken up a lot of the seasonal hiring,” he said. “Now we have all demographics looking for work. Some older folks who have more experience are picking up more of the teen jobs.”