Nebraska Supply Chain Strain Traced to Persistent Worker Shortage

A 2022 warning that still applies

In early 2022, Nebraska Public Media's Speaking of Nebraska spent an episode on a problem that store shelves and shipping delays had made hard to miss. The state's worker shortage and its supply chain disruptions, the program argued, were one problem, not two. Nebraska Public Media lists the episode with an air date of January 27, 2022, and PBS's national listing dates it February 24, 2022. Either way, the description was the same: labor shortages were hurting businesses across the state and making it harder for supply chains to keep shelves stocked.21 The panel included the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and academics from around the state, and its main focus was on solutions.2

More than four years later, the episode reads less like a snapshot of a pandemic emergency and more like an early diagnosis of a long-running condition. The supply shocks of 2021 and 2022 have faded from the headlines. The labor constraint that made them worse has not. In this analysis, that is the most important lesson of the broadcast.

What the broadcast laid out

The program opened by saying that hardly any Nebraska business had escaped the combined effects of a thin workforce and an overstretched supply chain.1 Creighton economist Ernie Goss was presented as someone who had never seen conditions like these. The segment linked the gap directly to everyday shortages: too few workers meant sparse shelves and longer waits for services.1

The Chamber's Bryan Slone put workforce at the top of nearly every employer's list. He said supply chain problems were adding a second layer of disruption, even though Nebraska's economy was getting through the pandemic better than most states.1 A supply chain management specialist on the panel blamed most of the trouble on the pandemic. She described supply chains that had worked well before COVID, where a disruption would have been a brief blip. Now they were so fragile that a single winter storm could cause real damage.1 Her point was that when supply chains work, the public never notices them. By 2022 they had become impossible to ignore.1

The cost side got the most specific discussion. A panelist from Metropolitan Community College said the damage was worst for businesses that depend on workers earning $16 an hour or less. Jobs in the $16-to-$20 range showed the second-largest drop.1 Those employers faced a squeeze from three directions: they needed to hire, but they also had to absorb supply shortages and the rising cost of the goods and services they buy.1 Slone added that the Federal Reserve's expected rate hikes would make things worse for businesses already strained by supply chain and labor costs.1

The supply-and-demand logic behind higher prices

The panel's economic argument was simple, and it holds up. When there aren't enough workers, output is limited. When supply can't keep up with demand, prices rise.1 That explanation matters because it treats inflation in Nebraska partly as a labor problem, not only a story about shipping containers and overseas factories.

Slone repeated the two-part diagnosis in a Midlands Business Journal piece a few weeks later. He said the state's supply chain problems came down to two things: shipments from overseas couldn't get through U.S. ports to Nebraska on time, and the workforce shortage was hurting the transportation industry.4 That same report noted that Nebraska manufacturing, which Slone said supplies about one in ten nonagricultural jobs, had grown strongly while still facing both constraints.4

The two explanations fit together, but they aren't the same. The ports problem was global and temporary. The trucking and staffing problem was local and structural. In this analysis, the second one explains why Nebraska businesses kept reporting supply chain pain after container rates and port backlogs eased. The Chamber's 2022 member survey supports that reading: 80% of roughly 230 respondents named a lack of workers as their biggest barrier to growth, while 43% cited supply chain issues. By that point, labor had clearly become the larger concern.

Where the coverage diverges

Accounts agree that a shortage existed. They disagree on why.

One view, voiced in the broadcast by Omaha barber and clothing shop owner Anthony Kellogg, put it down to people not wanting to work.1 Economists described something more structural. University of Nebraska-Lincoln economist Eric Thompson argued that Nebraska naturally runs a very low unemployment rate, around 2.5% by his estimate, because workers rarely stay jobless for long and employers try hard to keep them.1 In separate reporting, Thompson called the situation "labor friction": a slow readjustment after the recession that could take some workers years to find the right job.9

Worker advocates offered a third explanation. A Nebraska Appleseed organizer argued that the state's minimum wage was not a living wage. Once transportation and child care are counted, the organizer said, staying home could cost less than working.9 The same coverage noted that Thompson saw businesses choosing not to raise wages, and warned that sharp pay increases could eliminate some jobs.9 The 2021 strike at Kellogg's Omaha plant, partly over a proposed lower starting wage for new hires, showed that labor costs were being fought over directly.9

The weight of the evidence favors the structural explanation. In the episode, panelists pointed out that Nebraska's labor force participation rate, though below its historical peak of about 71-72%, was still second-highest in the country at around 68%.12 A state where that many people already work cannot fix a labor shortage by blaming people who aren't working.

From temporary shock to permanent constraint

Later reporting supports that conclusion. A literature review from Nebraska's Statewide Workforce and Education Reporting System found that more than 82% of Nebraska businesses reported hiring difficulties. It also found that the state's yearly net loss of people with bachelor's degrees or higher rose from 1,104 in 2010 to 4,548 in 2021.7 The review noted that trailer truck drivers were among the middle-skill jobs with persistent unfilled postings. That points straight at the logistics link Slone had flagged.7 The review concluded that, given Nebraska's already high participation rate, recruiting workers from other states may be more realistic than trying to get more residents into the workforce.7

In 2025, WOWT reported on findings from the same research group. It found that large shares of jobs in high-demand fields went unfilled in 2021: 46% of nursing jobs, 73% of technology jobs and 91% of HVAC and appliance jobs.5 The researcher also pointed to lower median pay for high-skill jobs in Nebraska compared with the national average.5

The Flatwater Free Press reported in 2025 that Nebraska had about 50,000 open jobs that employers couldn't fill, with the problem worse in rural areas.8 Thirteen nursing homes had closed over four years, partly because of staffing shortages.8 Slone told the outlet that every industry needed workers, from doctors and nurses to welders and farmworkers.8 The same report said immigrants make up about 10% of the state's workforce and about a quarter of its manufacturing workers. That makes immigration policy a direct factor in how supply chains perform.8 Employers there were bracing for an immigration crackdown, with reactions ranging from concern to alarm.8

Why it still matters

The 2022 broadcast already pointed to where things were heading. Slone said labor shortages were pushing agriculture and manufacturing, the state's two largest industries, quickly toward automation. He called that good in the long run but expensive for business models already under pressure.112 The supply chain specialist argued that resilience requires flexibility and sometimes extra capacity or inventory.1 Both of those cost money. In practice, they mean higher costs in exchange for less fragile supply chains.

The panel also looked to Washington. Slone said federal immigration reform was needed and expressed serious concern about partisan gridlock on the issue.11 The supply chain specialist said workforce problems had to be addressed "end to end" across the chain.11 Both comments look prescient now. Port congestion was the visible symptom in 2022. The underlying problem was always the people who load, drive, assemble and stock.

In short, Nebraska's supply chain costs were never just a pandemic story. The state's very high participation rate, its loss of college graduates and its reliance on immigrant labor in manufacturing all point to a lasting supply constraint, one that raises costs whenever demand picks up. The Chamber's own goal of attracting 50,000 to 80,000 new residents over five years, which Slone described as a challenge spanning two decades, suggests business leaders have reached the same conclusion. The 2022 episode got the diagnosis right. The remaining question is whether policy will keep up with it.