Labor & Growth
New Elevator co-warehousing community aims to lift e-commerce startups, fill gap in Omaha market
OMAHA — Shannon Lerda and her family at times were quite literally up to their ears in boxes, bubble wrap, labels and pet supplies as the pandemic and their online sales accelerated. The good news was that the materials crowding their personal living space signaled prosperity for their e-commerce startup that allowed Lerda to work […]
Railroaders maintain they’re not being treated fairly by BNSF Railway
LINCOLN — More than 100 members of railroad unions rallied Sunday outside a BNSF Railway office in Lincoln, calling for better wages and working conditions to reflect inflation, sacrifices during the pandemic and stress caused by worker shortages. Galen Owen, a representative of the track workers union, said railroad workers have been laboring without a contractor […]
Grand Island seeking to tap lucrative youth sports market with multi-court facility
GRAND ISLAND — This central Nebraska city is hoping to join the effort to attract regional, youth sports tournaments and the local spending on motels and meals that comes with it. The 160,000-square-foot Pinnacle Bank Sports Complex is being planned for a site just off Interstate 80 at the U.S. Highway 281 interchange. The first phase will […]
Report ranks Omaha 13th among nation’s most competitive rental markets
OMAHA — Omaha ranked No. 13 in a new nationwide look at most competitive rental markets, according to an analysis released Thursday of the first four months of the year by apartment search website RentCafe.com. The researchers looked at the 100 largest U.S. markets and five metrics: average number of days that rentals were vacant; […]
Website Nebraskans use to file for unemployment benefits is back after cyberattack
OMAHA — The NEworks website used by Nebraskans to file for unemployment benefits is back up and running following a cyberattack on the vendor, which took down the operation for a week. Among multiple states impacted by the Geographic Solutions Inc. outage, Nebraska’s site was the first to come back online, a spokeswoman for the […]
National study predicts Nebraska’s future unemployment rate
Nebraska’s latest unemployment rate was 1.9% — which continues to be a record low for Nebraska, currently is the lowest of states in the country, and ties the record low for any state ever. A new study that looks at the future predicts that Nebraska in five years will have an even lower unemployment rate, […]
Metro marks 50th birthday with free fares for a day, new ORBT station and bus wrap art contest
OMAHA — Omaha’s public transit system celebrated its golden anniversary Friday with a day of fare-free rides and an announcement of a bus-wrapping art contest targeting area students. Metro also marked its 50-year milestone with the opening of its newest bus station — at Eighth and Farnam Streets, next to the newly re-opened Gene Leahy […]
Economic survey covering Nebraska and surrounding states shows gloomy confidence level
OMAHA — Confidence in business conditions has plummeted to the lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the latest regional economic report produced by Omaha’s Creighton University. Only about 4% of supply managers surveyed in a nine-state region that includes Nebraska expect the U.S. economy to expand in the next six months. […]
Grand reopening of Omaha’s Gene Leahy Mall caps half-century of history
OMAHA — Nearly 50 years have passed since Omaha leaders crafted a dramatic plan to help rescue a dying downtown: Build an iconic, people-magnet park through the city’s central business district. It’s been 30 years since that resulting Central Park Mall was renamed after affable Mayor Gene Leahy, who championed a “return to the river” […]
OPS security guards complain about low pay, increase in behavioral issues and threats
LINCOLN — The union that represents security guards at Omaha Public Schools is appealing to a state labor court, claiming that OPS has failed to bargain in good faith over wages, job duties and “more dangerous working conditions.” The filing comes as OPS is seeing an exodus of teachers, an increase in behavioral issues and […]
Cyberattack downs system Nebraskans use to file for jobless benefits
The NEworks website — used by Nebraskans to file for unemployment benefits — has been shut down as a result of a cyberattack. The Nebraska Department of Labor issued a statement Tuesday, saying the website is unavailable due to a national outage involving the department’s web vendor, Geographic Solutions Inc. GSI reportedly discovered a cyberattack […]
Sprawling mixed-use development launches on longtime Sarpy County farm site
PAPILLION — A sprawling, 120-acre greenspace in the midst of this Sarpy County seat is about to sprout a neighborhood of hundreds of homes, offices, commercial spaces and trails oriented toward the city’s iconic water tower. Dubbed the Tower District Papillion, the new subdivision north of Highway 370 between 84th and 90th Streets is expected […]