The Nebraska Department of Labor (NDOL) announced today that Nebraska’s preliminary unemployment rate for January was 2.9 percent, seasonally adjusted. The rate was unchanged from the December 2017 rate of 2.9 percent and is down 0.2 percentage points from the January 2017 rate of 3.1 percent. The December 2017 rate was revised up from 2.7 to 2.9 as part of the normal revision process. “While industries experienced normal seasonal declines in January, the state’s total labor force and number of employed workers in the labor force were both up over the month and over the year,” said Commissioner of Labor John H. Albin. “Workers who are experiencing seasonal unemployment or who are looking to reenter the workforce can utilize any of the 15 Department of Labor job centers across the state, including the newest office in Sidney, which opened in February.”

Nonfarm employment for January 2018 was 1,004,145. Benchmarked nonfarm employment data will be published on April 20, at which time comparisons to 2017 and previous years’ data will be available.

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for January was 4.1 percent, unchanged from the December 2017 rate of 4.1 percent and down 0.7 percentage points from the January 2017 rate of 4.8 percent. The February 2018 rate was 4.1 percent, down 0.6 percentage points from the February 2017 rate of 4.7 percent.

February 2018 Nebraska data will be published Friday, March 23. December 2017 and January 2017 unemployment data is provided for comparison purposes only. Statewide and substate benchmarked 2016 and 2017 data will be published on Friday, April 20. Benchmarking is the annual process of aligning estimated data from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program with known employment numbers from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program. It is a necessary step in ensuring the data released by the NDOL is of the highest quality.

For more January 2018 data, go to dol.nebraska.gov/InfoLink. A listing of job centers can be found through the Contact Us link at dol.nebraska.gov. 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.