January 26, 2021

Rate is Lowest in the Nation for Fifth Straight Month

LINCOLN - The Nebraska Department of Labor (NDOL) announced today that Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for December is 3.0 percent, seasonally adjusted. The rate has been unchanged since October 2020 and is the same as the rate from September to December of 2019. The November 2020 rate was revised down to 3.0 percent.

“Nebraska employment has recovered significantly since April, which was the peak for employment losses due to the pandemic,” said Commissioner of Labor John H. Albin. “Nonfarm jobs have increased over 71,000 since April to 1,015,898 in December.”

Nonfarm employment (filled jobs) was up 5,394 over the month, the largest December increase ever, and down 21,403 over the year. Private industries with the most growth year over year were education and health (up 2,976), financial activities (up 2,143) and mining and construction (up 1,316). Month to month, the largest gains were seen in trade, transportation and utilities (up 4,122), professional and business service (up 1,437), and financial activities (up 712). The nonfarm job count has remained above 1 million since September 2020.

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December is 6.7 percent, the same as the November rate and up 3.1 percentage points from the December 2019 rate of 3.6 percent.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) issued the following statement regarding claims data and unemployment estimates: “Data users must be cautious about trying to compare or reconcile the UI claims data with the official unemployment figures gathered through the household survey. The unemployment data derived from the household survey in no way depend upon the eligibility for or receipt of UI benefits. In some cases, UI claims data exclude people who would be identified as unemployed in the household survey, like new entrants to the labor force with no prior work experience. In other cases, UI data may include individuals who do not meet the CPS definition of unemployment.”

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment and unemployment data can be found on the BLS website www.bls.gov/bls/bls-covid-19-questions-and-answers.htm   

Due to annual benchmarking, January 2021 data will be published on Monday, March 15. February 2021 data will be published on Friday, March 26.

More NDOL press releases are accessible here: https://dol.nebraska.gov/PressRelease