LINCOLN- The Nebraska Department of Labor (NDOL) announced today that Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for August was 3.2 percent, seasonally adjusted. The rate is up 0.1 percentage points over the month and 0.2 percentage points over the year.

"The unemployment rate saw a slight increase in August, but the total number of persons employed in August was up 3,160 over the year before." said Commissioner of Labor John H. Albin. "The data suggests that the main cause for the increase in the unemployment rate is individuals who had dropped out of the labor force and therefore were not included in prior months’ counts of individuals looking for work. The total number of jobs remained over the million mark in August, the sixth straight month Nebraska’s nonfarm employment has been above 1 million."

Nonfarm employment for August totaled 1,017,899, an increase of 10,077 over the year. Private industries with the most growth year over year were education and health services (up 4,712), leisure and hospitality (3,616) and professional and business services (2,299). Month to month, the largest gains were seen in education and health services (973) and trade, transportation and utilities (up 709).

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for August was 4.9 percent, the same as the July rate and down 0.2 percentage points from the August 2015 rate of 5.1 percent.

September 2016 data will be published Friday, October 21.

Monthly State Unemployment Rate.pdf