The Nebraska Department of Labor (NDOL) announced today that Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for December was 2.7 percent, seasonally adjusted. The rate was unchanged from the November 2017 rate of 2.7 percent and is down 0.6 percentage points from the December 2016 rate of 3.3 percent.

“2017 has been a strong year for our non-farm jobs sector of the economy. This is the first time that Nebraska had more than one million jobs in each month of the year," said Commissioner of Labor John H. Albin. "Nebraska also ended the year with the fourth lowest preliminary unemployment rate in the nation."

Nonfarm employment was 1,037,248, up 10,378 over the year and up 2,245 over the month. Private industries with the most growth year over year were leisure and hospitality (up 4,998), professional and business services (up 3,448), and education and health services (up 1,781). Month to month, the largest gains were seen in Financial Activities (up 642); trade, transportation and utilities (up 579); and leisure and hospitality (up 556).

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for December was 4.1 percent, unchanged from the November 2017 rate of 4.1 percent and down 0.6 percentage points from the December 2016 rate of 4.7 percent.

For more December data, go to dol.nebraska.gov/InfoLink. Nonfarm employment data can be found at NEworks.nebraska.gov/CES and Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) data can be found at NEworks.nebraska.gov/LAUS.

Due to benchmarking of data, January 2018 data is scheduled for release on Monday, March 12.