State chamber president says state is No. 2 in the nation for economic growth
The president of the Nebraska Chamber of Commerce stopped by for a visit in Hamilton County on Thursday and delivered some good news for Nebraska and communities like Aurora all across the state.
Bryan Slone of Omaha was in town for a Summer Listening Session with community leaders which is part of a statewide tour the Gering native is conducting over the summer months. The session at the Bremer Center, which also included District 34 Senator Loren Lippincott, was intended as a way for Slone to connect with local leaders and discuss legislation that will come before the Unicameral next year. Slone is in his fifth year as state chamber president and said he is spending his summer on a listening tour in towns from Scottsbluff to Omaha which will help form the basis of the group’s legislative agenda. He wants to have that finalized by September or October.
Slone said the best news he had to deliver that morning was that for what is possibly the first time in history, Nebraska is the second fastest growing state in the U.S. behind Florida. He said there has never been a time in his lifetime the state has been in that position and he said he doesn’t even know how many times over the past 60-plus years it has been in the top 10.
“Since 1925 I don’t think anything like this has happened,” Slone said, in reference to Nebraska’s present double digit growth. “I don’t know where it stops either.”
Slone said the state’s top two industries, agriculture and manufacturing, are strong and the only weak sector in ag at this moment is cow/calf operations. He said financial services and transportation have also done well.
Noting that in his travels he has met dozens of young leaders in every community all across the state, Slone also said, “this is as strong a freshman class of the Unicameral as I’ve ever seen.”
“I would argue that it was the best session in the history of Nebraska,” he continued, adding that this year was the first time taxes have been cut “based on one of the country’s strongest economies.”
Slone also noted that people are moving to the state in large numbers to the point that “people in the Panhandle are concerned about all those Coloradans moving in!”
Asserting that in the 1980s and 90s the federal government drove much of what was happening in the state, Slone said “I’m gonna argue that in the next 10 years this will happen in communities.” However, he said the only thing that will stop the surge in community-driven growth is a lack of young people.
Saying that Nebraskans are having fewer babies today, Slone reported the state is short by 70,000 workers versus the jobs that are open.
“For the Auroras, the Gerings, the Lincolns and Omaha, this is gonna be the challenge,” he said. As a case in point, he said broadband internet providers are having an increasingly difficult time hiring fiber optics splicers.
Asking the dozen or so community leaders in the room what is going well in Aurora, Slone heard that the town is in the midst of a “housing boom.” Leaders related the recent $1 million Rural Workforce Housing Grant that has helped make 60 lots available for construction. Leaders also reported that the villages of Hampton and Phillips have housing projects in the works as well.
“This is not the story we hear everywhere,” Slone interjected. “How did you build community support for that?”
What followed was several minutes of discussion of various growth projects in the county and community needs such as a solid labor force and good schools and daycare to attract young families.
Slone said he believed the key to solving the labor shortage was going to be legal immigration.
“Pretty much everyone who can work is working,” Slone said. “I think the next president and congress will have to deal with the issue of legal immigration.”
Following the meeting Slone said, “the real issue is attracting 18 to 34-year-olds and families to communities. That’s going to drive the economy of every community in this day. And the most important thing there is are our communities attractive and are they recruiting that age group? And there’s nothing the legislature the congress can do that automatically makes that happen. It’s really what we talked about today. Does the community have the leadership and the priorities? And are they putting private money in with public money to really create vibrant communities for these young people? And I would say Aurora is doing that as well as anybody in the state, but there’s a lot of work yet to be done.”
Slone said the top priorities for growth are increasing the state’s college enrollments, automating core industries,such as agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, financial services and technology, and fixing the nation’s immigration system.
“We have to control our borders,” Sloan said, “but we also have to have a process for vetting and bringing in (workers). There are millions of people in the world with skills who want to live in Aurora and Wahoo and Gordon and Crete with skill sets we need and great young families and we have to have the ability to bring those people in. That’s how Nebraska was formed. We need another immigration surge of legal immigrants.
“I think one of the things that came out of COVID, which is only going to be beneficial to Nebraska, is people are rethinking quality of life,” Slone said. “And I’m seeing it all over the state as I travel the state. Young people are moving to the state but not in the numbers we need – we literally need tens of thousands of young families to move to the state – but that’s going to take a real effort on behalf of our communities.”