Seven in 10 Employers Have Yet to Partner with a School

Ask a business owner where next year's hires will come from, and most will name a job board. Few will name the high school two miles away.

What the State's Employer Survey Found

In March 2026 the Nebraska Department of Labor published Building Nebraska's Future Workforce: A Statewide Landscape Assessment. The department sent its survey to 34,692 employers, and 4,001 answered.

The headline number: 70.4% of employers have yet to work with a school or college on hiring. Among those who do:

• 19.7% work with community colleges
• 13.6% work with the state colleges
• 10.1% work with local K-12 schools

Commissioner of Labor Katie Thurber told the Midlands Business Journal this month, "This gap presents a significant opportunity to better align student skills with employer needs."

Hiring Starts Long Before the Job Is Posted

Half of the employers surveyed (50.4%) recruit on online job boards. Another 44.7% use social media, and 37.1% lean on employee referrals.

Each of those reaches people who are already in the job market. A sophomore picking next year's classes is looking somewhere else. So is the teacher helping that sophomore choose.

Gary Girard of Metropolitan Community College put it this way in the same article: "In reality, many workforce challenges are pipeline challenges." The employers who do best, he said, engage early and share what they need.

The Report Says It Comes Down to Finding Each Other

Here is the encouraging part. The report says schools are doing their job, with programs that line up with high-demand fields. The gap, it says, is "a structural gap in how employers and educational institutions find and engage with one another."

That is good news, because helping two groups find each other is very doable. The report names the tools: targeted outreach, shared platforms and formal partnership models. It also points to small businesses, those with fewer than 25 employees, as the group with the most room to grow.

What a Simple Partnership Looks Like

A partnership can start small. For a 12-person shop, it can be three things:

1. Show the work. Photos and short video of a real day on the job.
2. Name the way in. A job shadow, an internship, an apprenticeship or an entry-level role.
3. Show the way up. Where that first role can lead in five years.

Students choose paths they can picture. Teachers and counselors are looking for something real to point to.

One Place for Schools and Employers to Find Each Other

CareerPathway.com was built to be that shared place. A Business creates a free profile in about ten minutes, then posts photos, video and Opportunities. Students, Educators and Individuals exploring what comes next see your people and your work all year long. Colleges are there too, so the path from classroom to first job sits in one place.

Nebraska put a number on the gap. Any community can close it, one profile at a time.

Create your free Business profile