In a viral commercial during the Masters, Peyton Manning told his fellow Peyton Mannings to “double our investment in Omaha.” A reference to his former football days where Manning would regularly call out “Omaha” before a play, he has often turned back to Omaha as a light-hearted jest. According to data released by the Greater Omaha Chamber, businesses both large and small are taking his sound advice seriously.
The Monthly Economic Indicators (MEI) for February 2022, in addition to the remarkable success of recently landed projects, showed that Greater Omaha is continuing its bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic at full-speed.
“The Greater Omaha area is growing at an unprecedented rate and people are getting excited about it,” said Todd Johnson, Senior Vice President, Economic Development at the Greater Omaha Chamber. “To have a legend like Peyton Manning invoking Omaha in a commercial really is a testament to the great work being done here. Things like this are great for our city.”
Compared to February 2021, Greater Omaha continues to increase its pool of potential workers and add new jobs. The unemployment rate fell from 3.5% in February 2021 to 2.4% in February 2022, which is slightly higher than Nebraska’s (2.2%) and below the U.S. (4.1%).
Greater Omaha has seen an increase of almost 7,500 net jobs compared to February 2021. The industries that have seen the largest increase are Leisure and Hospitality (10.0%), Construction (5.0%) and Information (3.1%). Nebraska’s GDP also increased at 5.3% over their 2020 GDP. Finally, Eppley saw an increase in passenger enplanements compared to February 2021.
The Greater Omaha Chamber also released the following information on recently landed projects:
Unison
- A FinTech company specializing in home-equity agreements
- Based in San Francisco, Unison selected Omaha for their second location due to the strong financial services cluster present in the region
- Plan on hiring up to 500 jobs over the next few years
- A BioTech company focusing on research, development and production of industrial enzymes, microorganisms, and biopharmaceutical ingredients.
- Danish company, has location in Cargill’s Blair biotech campus
- Announced new venture focusing on plant-based foods, $316 million investment
- Amazon continues their rapid build out in the Greater Omaha market
- Includes 700,000 SF robotic fulfillment center in Sarpy County which will create over 1,000 jobs
- Other projects include 3 other delivery centers in Council Bluffs (260,000 SF), Papillion (150,000 SF) and Omaha (140,000 SF)
- Milwaukee based Fiserv acquired long-time Omaha born company First Data 2020. First Data/Fiserv is a financial services company.
- First Data/Fiserv has 4,000 employees in the Omaha area, Fiserv committed to keeping this presence here
- Fiserv completed a major renovation of their 280,000 SF Aksarben facility
- Facebook came to Sarpy County in 2017 with the announcement for a 917,000 SF data center
- Announced just a year later that they would expand to 6 total buildings for a total of 2.6 million square feet of data center space, Phase 3 began in 2021
- Have worked with Omaha Public Power District to run the facilities on 100% renewable power
Greater Omaha is a No. 1 ranked up-and-coming-tech hotspot, a “top 10 best place to live on a $60,000 salary” and one of the “best cities for young professionals” according to SmartAsset . Greater Omaha is home to more than 30 communities and nearly 1 million people.
About the Greater Omaha Chamber
The mission of the Greater Omaha Chamber is to champion a thriving business community and a prosperous region through visionary leadership and collaboration.
Original source can be found here.
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