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    3 things you should know about Omaha’s job growth rate

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    By Henry J. Cordes,Henry J. Cordes and Maddie Ames World-Herald Staff Writer

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    3 things you should know about Omaha's job growth rate

    Omaha business leaders are raising an alarm after a new report was released Tuesday on the city’s job growth.

    Employment in the Omaha metro has been growing at a sluggish pace, badly trailing its regional neighbors, such as Des Moines, Kansas City and Denver.

    A report commissioned by Omaha’s Aksarben Foundation details how Omaha’s economy has slowed in comparison to its peers for employment and growth.

    The World-Herald studied the numbers, interviewed experts and asked city leaders what should be done to fix sluggish job growth. Here are key takeaways from our reporting:

    Study looked at job growth in Omaha, Lincoln, other cities

    To understand the problem, Omaha’s Aksarben Foundation commissioned a report by Development Counsellors International, which spotlighted the non-competitive job growth in Lincoln and Omaha.

    The report found that this lack of growth is costing the state thousands of potential jobs, billions of dollars in wages and hundreds of millions in state taxes. To better understand Lincoln and Omaha’s growth DCI compared the cities to seven metros: Des Moines, Sioux Falls, Colorado Springs, Boise, Idaho, Huntsville, Alabama, Fayetteville, Arkansas and Raleigh, North Carolina.

    In the five-year period covering 2020 to 2024, Omaha and Lincoln both posted annual job growth of roughly one-half of 1 percent.

    If Omaha and Lincoln grew employment and wages at the collective rate of comparison cities included in the report, they would have added 68,000 more jobs, $11 billion in wages and collected between $600 million and $800 million in additional state taxes.

    What officials and business leaders are saying

    Governor Jim Pillen said he agrees that addressing the state’s workforce challenge is one of the state’s top strategic priorities.

    “I’m grateful to anyone, including the backers of this initiative, who are committed to doing thoughtful work to understand this challenge and develop solutions to meet it,” he said. “My administration will remain laser-focused on making sure our state does everything possible to attract great people to ‘The Good Life.’ ”

    Omaha Mayor John Ewing recently increased city funding from $175,000 to $350,000 in order to help boost recruiting efforts for the Omaha chamber’s economic development arm.

    “I want to be much more aggressive in trying to retain businesses in Omaha and be aggressive in recruiting businesses to Omaha,” Ewing said.

    Local business leaders have also spoken about the issue, saying that companies are outsourcing jobs to individuals out of state.

    Mike Cassling, an Omaha business executive who chairs Aksarben’s board of governors, said he has heard many similar stories.

    “Slowly, quietly, companies are just putting people in other states,” he said.

    Workforce shortages have happened before in Omaha

    This isn’t the first time a workforce shortage has caused concern in Omaha.

    Longtime Omaha business leader Mike Yanney compared this moment to a wake-up call four decades ago when Northern Natural Gas left Omaha and ConAgra threatened to move out to Tennessee.

    The threat of ConAgra spurred Nebraska lawmakers to pass tax and economic incentives to get the company to stay.

    Now, Yanney said the state must do what it can to help attract and retain workers.

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