The opening of a new sports facility will create hundreds of Reno jobs.

The opening of the Reno Aces Baseball Stadium will help to create more than 200 new Reno jobs. The stadium, which cost $40 million, is slated to open in April. The team will begin playing in Reno during the 2009 season. The new stadium houses 10,000 people.

The Reno Aces are northern Nevada’s first Triple-A baseball team. The franchise was purchased by SK Baseball, which is led by managing partner Stuart Katzoff, in 2007. SK Baseball also has plans to develop a Stadium Entertainment District, which will include retail, dining and nightlife venues.

The new jobs should help revive Reno’s struggling economy. During December 2008, the Reno-Sparks area had a total non-farm employment of 216,500 workers, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 218,200 workers during November 2008 and a 4.8 percent decrease from last year.

Reno has seen an over-the-year job decrease during the last six months, by 2 percent during July, 2.2 percent during August, 2.1 percent during September, 2.5 percent during October, 3.7 percent during November and 4.8 percent during December.

During November, the Reno area had an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent, up from 7.2 percent during October and higher than the national unemployment rate of 6.7 percent.

Reno is only following in the steps of the rest of the nation, which as a whole lost 524,000 jobs during December. The nation lost a total of 1.9 million jobs during the last four months of 2008. The country also saw its unemployment rate increase from 6.7 percent to 7.2 percent during December.