The Mid-Plains labor availability and hiring needs reports for McCook, Ogallala, and North Platte have been released by the Nebraska Department of Labor.
The reports cover responses from 13 counties, 409 businesses, and over 1,000 households on topics including hiring difficulty, barriers to employment, job openings, and important factors when seeking employment. The survey area population in total includes over 56,000 adults and an estimated total labor force of over 37,000.
Survey respondents listed construction, retail trade, and manufacturing as the industries with the most difficulty hiring workers. However, the most common reason for hiring difficulty cited by employers was a lack of applicants (84-90% depending on the area). Poor work history, lack of work experience, and wage demands were the next most common reasons employers cited across the survey areas.
To combat this, 85-87% of businesses said they plan to raise wages to increase their candidate pool.
The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Nebraska that was last reported in July of this year remained the same as the month of June at 2.6%. Check out the full report at NEworks.nebraska.gov.