As Nebraska's unemployment rate hovers around 2%, Gov. Jim Pillen announced Monday that he will chair a working group dedicated to examining "workforce issues" in the state.

“In Nebraska, we are facing a workforce shortage," Pillen said in a news release Monday. "Our unemployment rate remains among the lowest in the nation, creating a unique challenge for attracting great people to our state.

“No industry is exempt from current shortages. We need to solve this problem if we are to continue growing Nebraska.”

The state's unemployment rate climbed to 2% in July after spending two months at 1.9% in May and June, according to the state's Department of Labor. Nebraska's unemployment rate was 2.6% in January — the highest it's been this year.

Pillen will be joined on the group by three state senators, the Department of Economic Development director and representatives from state employers, business groups and universities, including the University of Nebraska, according to the news release.

The state's labor department is not among agencies represented on the board.

Ted Carter, the University of Nebraska president who will serve as a representative on the working group, said in the news release that he's looking forward to finding "creative solutions to fix our growing workforce shortage in Nebraska."

"It will take all partners involved to come up with innovative ideas to grow our state’s workforce," Carter said in the news release. "The University of Nebraska and all of higher education will be key players in this effort.”

Representatives from Concordia University, Metropolitan Community College, the Nebraska State College System and the Nebraska Community College Association will also participate in the working group.

The Nebraska State Chamber of Commerce — along with the chambers from both Lincoln and Omaha— will also send delegates to the group.

The state's labor shortage has emerged as a key issue for the business groups, who hosted the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce's Federal Legislative Summit earlier this month in Ashland, where a U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive lobbied Nebraska's congressional delegation to implement incremental immigration reform as a means for addressing workforce issues.

"The worker crisis is the border crisis," the executive, Christine Scullion, said at the Aug. 8 summit. "They're one in the same, in a lot of ways. And there are ways to fix the border and there are things that we should do, but we also need to be addressing the fact that there need to be workers here."

Nebraska's congressional delegates in attendance — including Sens. Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts and Reps. Mike Flood and Adrian Smith — seemed largely unmoved by Scullion's keynote speech, insisting that securing the border would have to come first.

"We better know who is coming across this border and what they're carrying," Fischer said at the summit. "Until we do that, it's going to be very, very difficult to bring sides together in the United States Senate in order to work on legal issues, to work on legal immigration issues, to be able to meet workforce needs.

"As we stand now, no, I don't see that happening."

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