The Nebraska Department of Labor (NDOL) announced today that Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for January 2016 is 3.0 percent, seasonally adjusted. The jobless rate is the same as the revised December 2015 rate of 3.0 percent and up 0.1 percentage points from the January 2015 rate of 2.9 percent.

“Workers entering and re-entering the labor market were a contributing factor to the slight year-over-year increase in the rate,” said Commissioner of Labor John H. Albin.  “Total employment is up and the number of unemployment claims filed is down in 19 different industries compared to last year, including construction, manufacturing, and administration and support.”

Total nonfarm employment for January was 995,792, up by 14,917 over January of 2015. Private industries with the most growth year over year were professional and business services (up 3,794), education and health services (up 3,392), and leisure and hospitality (up 2,622). Month to month, the most growth was seen in manufacturing (up 383). 

The seasonally-adjusted national unemployment rate in January was 4.9 percent, down 0.1 percentage points from the December rate and down 0.8 percentage points from the January 2015 rate of 5.7 percent.

February 2016 data will be published Friday, March 25.  All benchmarked data is scheduled for release on April 15.