Nebraska jobless rate remained 4 percent in August

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- Nebraska's unemployment rate remained at 4 percent in August, which was the second-lowest of any state and less than half the national rate, the state Labor Department said in a report released Friday.

The figure was a half percentage point lower than the 4.5 percent of August 2011 and far lower than the overall U.S. unemployment rate for last month of 8.1 percent. Only North Dakota's August rate of 3 percent was lower than Nebraska's.

"Nebraska's summer unemployment numbers continue to show improvement over last year's," said Catherine Lang, the state labor commissioner. "Job numbers are up 11,979 over last year at this time, and that's the largest August-to-August increase in the last four years."

The Labor Department report said the number of unemployed people in Nebraska was estimated at 40,821 in August, compared with 40,674 in July.

Unemployment in the state's largest city, Omaha, dropped to 4.2 percent. That's a half percentage point lower than the revised July figure of 4.7 percent. A year ago the August figure was 4.9 percent.

In Lincoln the rate dropped to 3.3 percent from a revised figure of 3.8 percent in July. A year ago the August rate was 3.9 percent.

The unemployment rates for Lincoln and Omaha are not seasonally adjusted, the department has said, so they cannot be directly compared to the state unemployment rate.