LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - The Nebraska unemployment rate dropped to 2.9% in January, which was down a tenth of a percentage point from the revised December figure of 3%, according to state report released Monday.
The rate also was a tenth of a point under the 3% figure reported for January 2019, the Nebraska Labor Department report said.
“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 in January,” said state Labor Commissioner John Albin. “There were normal seasonal declines in some industries.”
Nonfarm employment for January 2020 was 1,020,166, which was down by 17,135 over the month, the report said.
The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for January was 3.6%, which was up a tenth of a point from the December 2019 rate of 3.5% and down four-tenths of a point from the January 2019 rate of 4%.
The labor department provided January rates for the state’s statistical areas but said it could not yet provide December’s revised date for comparison because of benchmarking. That’s the annual process of aligning estimated data from one employment statistics program with known employment numbers from a quarterly employment census. The benchmarking is necessary to ensure the quality of the labor data, the department said.
The Grand Island area rate for January was 4.8%, the department said. The Lincoln rate was 2.6% and the Omaha rate was 3.1%. Unemployment rates for those three statistical areas have not been seasonally adjusted, so they cannot be directly compared with the state unemployment rate, the department has said.
Here are the preliminary area labor market unemployment rates for January:
- Beatrice: 3.3%
- Columbus: 2.7%
- Fremont: 3.0%
- Hastings: 3.4%
- Kearney: 2.5%
- Lexington: 2.7%
- Norfolk: 2.6%
- North Platte: 3.3%
- Red Willow: 2.8%
- Scottsbluff: 3.4%
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