Jul. 31--As August's Summer Olympics open in Beijing, America's top athletes aren't the only homegrown product headed to China. A new study found that some of America's -- and Nevada's -- best jobs have decamped to the People's Republic as well.

The Silver State lost 10,700 jobs to China from 2001 to 2007, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. The losses, which account for actual jobs shed as well as positions that went unformed, include more than 1,650 posts in food services and hotels.

Also gone: blue-collar manufacturing jobs; manufacturing support services such as transportation; science and engineering jobs related to manufacturing; and advanced technology jobs, said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which commissioned the study.

The nation lost 2.3 million jobs to China in the same period, the report said.

Local economists respond that the number of Nevada jobs shipped to China pales in comparison to overall job formation here. Nevada businesses added 240,500 positions from 2001 to 2007, according to numbers from the state's Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. That includes 34,400 jobs in hotels and 6,900 positions in manufacturing. Nevada has clocked in as the only state with any recent manufacturing growth, said Ray Bacon, executive director of the Nevada Manufacturers Association.

Bacon said he couldn't think offhand of Nevada manufacturers that sent jobs directly to China. He cited a maker of foams for flower bouquets that shuttered its Dayton operation about seven years ago and moved to South Korea, where its market was expanding. He also pointed to a Sparks manufacturer of ear-protection muffs that consolidated operations in its Michigan plant after less-expensive Chinese earmuffs took over the U.S. marketplace. Both companies had 20 or 30 workers, Bacon said, and they paid anywhere from $12 to more than $15 an hour at the time they closed.

"Our losses have been relatively minor, and most of the time they've been situations where the jobs in Nevada wouldn't have moved except for the fact that the main product they were supplying moved," Bacon said. "Instead of the jobs directly moving to China, the marketplace moved to China."

As for the 1,650 jobs the EPI said Nevada dropped in food service and hotels, state economist Bill Anderson said a variety of factors make it difficult to pinpoint whether direct competition from China forced the losses. Some big casinos, such as the 1,800-employee Stardust, have closed in recent years, but they're making way for even bigger developments. The 10,000-employee Echelon is scheduled to replace the Stardust in 2010.

"It's not like a hotel will close and shift its operations from the Las Vegas Strip to China," said Anderson, chief economist at the employment department.