Elko, Nevada – a city of 50,000 people – is historically known for its rural atmosphere and gold production. While the area might not seem like an exciting place to live, the town’s gold-mining operations are adding jobs and helping to spread wealth throughout Elko County. In the meantime, more popular spots like Las Vegas and Reno are suffering from real estate blows and the overall recession.

Elko currently employs 26,700 workers, up from 25,500 workers last year. Most other towns, and the State of Nevada as a whole, have continued to lose jobs. Even the construction industry, which is one of the hardest hit by the recession, has seen an increase in employment in Elko, as have taxable sales.

According to an article by The Wall Street Journal, the one paradox is that the unemployment rate in Elko County has increased from 4.2 percent to 6.4 percent. However, this is mainly due to the fact that unemployed people from other Nevada towns and cities have migrated to Elko hoping to find work. And Elko County’s jobless numbers are fewer than Nevada’s 10.1 percent unemployment rate.

“Holding your own looks like a beacon when everyone else is in the hole,” Elko County Manager Robert Stokes said in the article.

Officials at the Elko JobConnect office have reported that 1,500 people each month are looking for help finding work, an increase of 50 percent from last year. Those who have been able to find work can probably thank the town’s gold mining industry.

As the price of gold has increased, gold mines in the Elko area are thriving and looking for workers. Barrick Gold Corporation, which employs 3,500 workers, has added 250 workers during the last year and plans to add another 300 jobs during the next several months. Newmont Mining Corporation, which is based in Denver, Col., employs about 3,500 workers and generally has about 40 to 50 open positions.

The gold mining industry is in turn helping to keep the construction industry afloat. Barrick and Newmont, which are the leaders in the local mining industry, have each built new office buildings in Elko, which helped create more construction jobs.

On top of that, the Elko County Economic Diversification Authority has started construction on a $14 million railport that will house six industrial tenants and create 1,400 jobs. One of the tenants, Pacific Steel & Recycling, based in Great Falls, Mont., has 38 branch locations throughout the West and mainly serves mining suppliers.

Again thanks to the mines, taxable sales in Elko County increased by .5 percent during January, while they decreased by 12.9 percent throughout Nevada as a whole. And although Elko County has seen an 8.9 percent decrease in housing prices, that pales in comparison to the 17 percent decrease in Las Vegas and the 15.5 percent decrease across the country during February.