Nearly 500 businesses are primarily involved in the recreation and tourism economy. This excludes many food, transportation, and retail stores that also have considerable recreation and tourism related revenue. Mammoth Lakes and Bishop are the principal centers for recreation and tourism related businesses in the Mono and Inyo counties respectively. This pattern suggests that some of the other unique areas in the Eastern Sierra Nevada are under-served relative to the unique opportunities for recreation. The figure comparing unemployment trends over the past fifteen years clearly shows that unemployment trends in Mono and Inyo generally follow those for the state as a whole.
Mono County is unique due to the strong negative impact of low snow years.
A closer look at some of the seasonal variations for key sectors closely related to recreation illustrates some other important patterns. The following charts illustrate employment trends over the past five years. Seasonal variations are noticeable in Inyo where retail trade, construction, and federal employment all go up in summer and decline in the winter. Local government employment is dominated by teachers and declines during the summer. The relatively greater negative impact of the cold winters in Mono is evident in the large summer increases in construction, federal employment and in retail trade.