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Labor Market Pulse
NE NONMETROPOLITAN AREA Edition
Focus: FINANCE
Nebraska finance wages outpace the market — but not locally.
2.9%
Nebraska unemployment rate
Unchanged from July 2026 and August 2025
7.1%
Finance/insurance wage growth
vs 3.1% all-industry average, Nebraska YoY
<1.5
Open jobs per unemployed worker
Down from ~4.0 in 2022, Nebraska
129,000
National financial activities jobs lost
Since May 2025, led by insurance carriers
This Month's Takeaways
Statewide finance wage growth is outrunning general wage trends.
Finance and insurance average weekly wages grew 7.1% year-over-year in Nebraska, more than double the 3.1% all-industry average. Cost escalation assumptions built on blended wage inflation will understate what finance and accounting talent actually costs.
Metro Controller and FP&A pay is falling while national pay climbs.
Local Controller advertised pay sits at $96,405 against a national median of $113,754, and FP&A Manager pay dropped moderately locally while holding stable nationally. Widening local-to-national gaps on senior finance roles raise flight risk for talent who can work remotely for better-paying national employers.
Labor market rebalancing cuts both ways for hiring plans.
Open jobs per unemployed worker in Nebraska fell from near 4:1 in 2022 to under 1.5:1 by July, easing some hiring friction for support roles like Billing Specialist, where metro pay has held stable. Senior finance talent remains the exception — scarcity there is structural, not cyclical, per national CPA shortage data (77% Talent Shortage Index).
Credit Analyst and Tax Specialist pay signal a local pricing gap.
Both roles show significant local pay declines ($55,000 and $43,355 respectively) against significant national increases ($71,758 and $65,842). Persistently underpriced specialist roles in a nonmetro labor pool may be harder to backfill as remote-capable candidates default to nationally competitive postings.
Local Labor Conditions
Nonmetropolitan Nebraska labor supply remains structurally tight at a statewide 2.9% unemployment rate, but the open-jobs-per-unemployed-worker ratio has fallen from nearly 4:1 in 2022 to under 1.5:1 as of July, signaling a genuine rebalancing rather than a reversal of scarcity. Finance and insurance wages across the state grew 7.1% year-over-year, among the fastest of any tracked industry, even as Kansas City Fed surveys show more Nebraska employers expecting smaller headcounts by early 2026 than those planning increases.
Leadership & Talent Implications
Rebalancing labor supply combined with persistent finance-sector wage escalation creates a planning tension: headcount growth is slowing statewide, but the roles Finance leaders need most — controllership, FP&A, tax — are getting more expensive to fill, not less. Locally advertised pay for Controller ($96,405) and FP&A Manager ($117,693) has moved down materially even as national medians for the same roles climbed, suggesting metro employers may be under-pricing roles relative to where national competition is heading. Consider reviewing whether current advertised pay ranges for finance leadership roles reflect the gap between local and national trajectories before next cycle's budget is locked.
