The Greater Omaha Chamber, in partnership with the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Bureau of Business Research, released the 2025 “Barometer Report” —an economic scorecard that measures how the Greater Omaha region stacks up against 22 peer and competitor metros in the race for jobs, talent, investment, and long-term prosperity.
The “Barometer Report” draws on 50 data points across nine indexes to provide a snapshot view of how Greater Omaha fares against these 22 peer and competitor metros. While Greater Omaha demonstrates real and substantial strengths, the report shows the region’s overall competitiveness ranking in the bottom quarter of metro comparisons.
“Results of the 2025 ‘Barometer Report’ show that Greater Omaha fits in well with the mid-sized metropolitan areas of the Industrial Midwest and Plains regions. The Omaha metro is found to have numerous strengths including higher education attainment, labor force participation and the quality of life, but also areas of weakness including entrepreneurship rates, state tax environment, and retaining College graduates,” said Dr. Eric Thompson, Director of the Bureau of Business Research at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
In the 2025 “Barometer Report,” Greater Omaha ranks in the top third in quality of life—eighth overall—earning top-tier scores for cost of living, public safety, and arts and culture. The region’s economy is productive, resilient and profitable, with growth outpacing peer metros and the nation in GDP expansion. Greater Omaha also demonstrates competitive advantages in industrial energy costs, unemployment, poverty reduction and narrowing the gender earnings gap.
At the same time, the 2025 “Barometer Report” highlights urgent challenges facing the Greater Omaha region. The data shows Greater Omaha is not growing its workforce fast enough, nor retaining enough college graduates. Job creation and private sector wage growth lag most of the benchmarked metros, while high tax burdens and educational attainment gaps add to competitiveness pressures.
“The stark reality is that Greater Omaha must grow faster—faster in employment, faster in wages, faster in residents. That is the challenge before us,” said Heath Mello, President & CEO of the Greater Omaha Chamber. “We know that with focus, collaboration and determination, we can harness our strengths and tackle weaknesses head on.”
The Chamber is taking action through its “A Greater Omaha” economic development strategy, which focuses on growing and retaining talent, accelerating business growth, and positioning the Omaha metro more boldly on the national stage. This work includes investing in research to help combat ‘brain drain’ and future workforce needs, equipping the region and Nebraska with stronger economic development tools, and advancing a bold public policy agenda through the Chamber’s “Omaha COMPETES” initiative.
“All of these efforts in concert with other innovative strategies and ideas from partners and stakeholders, will help us attract more people, recruit more jobs, expand more existing businesses and create the conditions for faster overall growth,” Mello said. “The message from this year’s Barometer Report is clear: our future competitiveness will not be given to us—it will be earned, together.”
“I believe this is Omaha’s moment. So much movement is happening in improving amenities and the quality of life. We just need all hands on deck to come together to create a comprehensive and collaborative plan to retain the companies we have, retain the human capital we have and create an environment where our residents and businesses thrive,” said Mayor John W. Ewing, Jr.
To read the full report, please visit here.
Photo by Brad Williams
