Dozens of ITC Federal employees in Lincoln are set to lose their jobs. More than 140 people will be out of a job on Friday, and the U-E Local 808 Union has been negotiating with ITC Federal for a severance package. Union President Dawn Meyer says as of now, no laid off workers will be getting a severance. The U-E Local 808 union has planned a protest for tomorrow afternoon near the downtown Lincoln office.
Meanwhile, Nebraska is dealing with a workforce shortage. A new report from Nebraska's Statewide Workforce and Education Reporting System shows the workforce shortage is due to supply and demand for skilled workers. According to the report, 46 percent of the state's nursing jobs, 68 percent of open teaching jobs, 73 percent of technology positions and 91 percent of open HVAC and appliance jobs went unfilled according to the latest data from 2021.
Despite this data, Nebraska still has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. The Department of Labor says the December unemployment rate is two-point-eight-percent, unchanged from November. The labor force in Nebraska is also at an all-time high for the second month in a row with just more than one-million-fifty-thousand workers.