The Nebraska Department of Labor (NDOL) announced today that Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for December, 2016 remained unchanged from the November rate of 3.4 percent, seasonally adjusted. The rate is up 0.4 percentage points over the December 2015 rate.

“December saw an over-the-year increase in nonfarm employment and was the 10th consecutive month in which nonfarm employment topped 1 million,” said Commissioner of Labor John H. Albin. “Employment in trade, transportation and utilities reached a new high in December.”

Nonfarm employment grew by by 8,194 over the year. Private industries with the most growth year over year were professional and business services (up 3,694); trade, transportation and utilities (up 2,228 over the year); and leisure and hospitality (up 1,796). Month to month, the largest gain was seen in trade, transporation and utilities (up 1,747).

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for November was 4.7 percent, up 0.1 percentage points over the month and down 0.3 percentage points from the December 2015 rate of 5.0 percent.

Due to the start of the benchmark process, January 2017 data is scheduled for release Monday, March 13 followed by February data on Friday, March 24. The 2015 and 2016 benchmarked data will be published Friday, April 21. Benchmarking is the annual process of aligning estimated data from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) programs with known employment numbers from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) data. It is a necessary step in ensuring the data released by the NDOL is of the highest quality.