Nebraska Monthly Unemployment Rate Spikes
Lincoln – Nebraska’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April jumped to 8.3%, more than double March’s 4% as the state saw businesses shuttered in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
The April rate was released last Friday by the Nebraska Department of Labor.
“April’s unemployment numbers show the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the hardworking people of Nebraska,” Gov. Pete Ricketts Ricketts said in a news release. “It also shows that Nebraska has been able to protect our health care system while also protecting the livelihoods of significantly more families than other states. In the coming weeks and months, our focus will continue to be on helping people safely get back to work so we can get Nebraska growing.”
Unemployment claims have risen to unprecedented levels in recent weeks, with more than 120,000 people in Nebraska filing for unemployment from March 8 and May 16. Thousands of people were laid off as nonessential businesses closed or scaled down amid the state’s efforts to slow the spread of the virus.
The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for April was 14.7%, a spike from the March rate of 4.4%. The April 2019 rate was 3.6%.
Nebraska’s nonfarm employment was 942,576 in April, a decline of 76,866 jobs over the month and 81,777 jobs over the year. The nonfarm employment level had not been below 943,000 since March 2011.
The preliminary Omaha-area unemployment rate for April was 10%, up from March’s 4.3%, the report said. The Lincoln-area preliminary rate rose to 9.3% from 3.7% in March, and the Grand Island-area rate shot to 11% from March’s 4.6%.
Unemployment rates for Grand Island, Lincoln and Omaha have not been seasonally adjusted and cannot be directly compared with the state unemployment rate.
Iowa’s unemployment rate soared to 10.2% in April, reflecting the economic costs of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus, state officials reported
Iowa has long had one of the nation’s lowest unemployment rates, but it rose to 3.3% in March and then roughly tripled in April, according to Iowa Workforce Development. Iowa’s April 2019 rate was 2.7%.
“The silver lining in this month’s report is that over 1.5 million Iowans remained in the workforce despite the pandemic and this will do the most to decrease the recovery time,” said Beth Townsend, director of Iowa Workforce Development.
Nationally, the unemployment rate for April was 14.7%. About three-fourths of those job losses are considered temporary, federal officials have said.
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