Nebraska's Leading Economic Indicator has dropped 0.06 percent in the month of October.
However, the slight decline comes after three months of growth and is not expected to send the states economic growth into a negative direction.
The state's Leading Economic Indicator increased by 1.21
percent in July, 1.36 percent in August and 0.65 percent in September.
UNL economist Eric Thompson believe Nebraska's economy should continue to grow at a moderate pace over the next six months.
"The outlook was mixed in October," said Thompson,
director of the Bureau of Business Research at UNL. "A drop in seasonally
adjusted unemployment claims and the U.S. dollar suggest strength in the labor
market and future growth in Nebraska's large export sector."
However, single-family building permits dropped after
several months of growth, and business expectations continued to be weak,
Thompson said.
The Leading Economic Indicator for Nebraska, produced by the
bureau and UNL's Department of Economics, is a composite of six components that
predict future economic growth. They are single-family building permits,
airline passenger counts, initial unemployment claims, manufacturing hours, the
value of the U.S. dollar and business expectations gathered from the Survey of
Nebraska Business.
The full Nebraska Monthly Economic Indicators report and a
Technical Report describing the indicators are available at the UNL College of
Business Administration website, www.cba.unl.edu.
