Record High Employment in Omaha 

LINCOLN - Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for August 2025 is 3.0 percent, seasonally adjusted. The rate is unchanged from the prior month, and saw a 0.1 percentage point increase from the August 2024 rate of 2.9 percent. The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for August 2025 is 4.3 percent, up 0.1 percentage points from the July 2025 rate and up 0.1 percent from the August 2024 rate. National unemployment rate rankings are available here: bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm.   

“The labor force in Nebraska has continued to grow, led by record high employment in the Omaha metro,” said Labor Commissioner Katie Thurber. “August was the second straight month of historically high employment in Omaha at over 525,500.” 

The labor force includes both employed workers and those who are actively looking for work. The counts of employed and unemployed in the labor force are based on a survey conducted by the Census Bureau regarding employment status.  Both individuals who are claiming unemployment benefits and those who are not claiming can be counted as unemployed based on their survey responses.  Individuals who are not working and are not seeking work are not considered part of the labor force and are not included in the unemployment rate calculation.

Nonfarm employment, the number of filled jobs, was 1,062,438 in August, up 5,288 over the year and down 886 over the month.  Private education and health services (up 7,801 jobs), leisure and hospitality (up 2,009 jobs), and mining and construction (up 1,998) had the most growth year to year. Private industries with the most growth month over month were private education and health services (up 649 jobs), other services (up 443 jobs), and information (up 72 jobs). 

September 2025 employment data will be published Tuesday, October 21, 2025. 

Employers looking for qualified applicants are encouraged to post their jobs for free on NEworks.nebraska.gov and partner with their closest job center to take advantage of programs geared at recruiting, upskilling, and expanding their workforce. Job center locations are listed at https://dol.nebraska.gov/ContactUs. 

More employment data is available at dol.nebraska.gov/INFOlink.  NDOL press releases are accessible here: dol.nebraska.gov/PressRelease