The unemployment rate in Las Vegas hit a staggering high of 33.5 percent in April, shooting past the overall statewide rate and that of all other metro areas in Nevada and pushing the state’s jobless rate to the highest in the country.

The Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) released statistics Wednesday on regional unemployment rates that showed Nevada’s most populous area was also the hardest-hit by pandemic-related closures. April has been the only month so far in which casino and non-essential business closures have lasted the entire month; additional business reopenings started in the first half of May.

“As improvements in public health measures allow businesses to begin reopening across the state, we expect to see a corresponding increase in employment in the affected areas,” DETR officials said in a report.

Nevada, with an economy dependent on casinos and tourism that effectively came to a standstill during the pandemic, has by far the highest unemployment rate in the nation.

Regional unemployment figures are not seasonally adjusted. For the state overall, the non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate was 29.8 percent, up from 6.9 percent a month earlier.

Other areas were affected to a lesser degree. Carson City had an unemployment rate of 21.4 percent in April, while Reno’s rate was 19.6 percent.

State officials say Las Vegas saw such a spike in unemployment in part because its heavy concentration of jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector. More than 21 percent of jobs in Clark County were classified as non-essential during the shutdown — the highest share among the state’s counties.