Led by a noticeable rebound in New Orleans, Louisiana has gained 48,200 jobs over the last year, according to state figures released Thursday.
Louisiana’s total nonfarm employment in December was 1,958,700, up from 1,910,500 in the same month in 2021, according to not seasonally adjusted statistics from the Louisiana Workforce Commission. The state also posted a 4,400-job gain from November.
Nearly half of the new jobs came from the New Orleans metro area, which has gained 22,700 jobs in that same year-over-year period. The region was responsible for the vast majority of the state's month-to-month job gains, adding 4,100 from November.
The Baton Rouge metro area had a 2,000-job jump from November to December. Year-over-year, the Capital Region has gained 4,600 jobs, trailing only New Orleans.
Lafayette added 4,000 jobs since December 2021. However, the region lost 100 jobs from November to December. It was one of four metro areas in Louisiana to lose jobs month-to-month.
Economist Loren Scott said Louisiana has regained about 82% of the jobs it lost since COVID-19 shutdowns began in March 2020. The state is about 51,000 jobs short of its pre-pandemic total.
Last summer, Louisiana had the second-worst job recovery rate in the nation behind only Alaska, Scott noted. Natural disasters, including but not limited to hurricanes in 2020 and 2021, have blunted the job recovery efforts.
“The good news is that the employment is rising,” Scott, who publishes an annual outlook for the state’s economy, said of the latest workforce figures. “That was a really good sign.”
Though the gains in New Orleans are noteworthy, Scott said the region’s economy is still about 25,100 jobs short of its pre-pandemic totals. The metro area has recovered 78% of the jobs it lost.
A significant source of the losses were tied to New Orleans’ convention business, Scott said. The region had 155 scheduled conventions for 2020 but 66 were canceled and 46 went virtual. Of the 100 conventions scheduled in 2022, none were canceled and only one went virtual.
“The convention business just got creamed,” Scott said.
Meanwhile, Baton Rouge has regained about 87% of its jobs lost from the pandemic, Scott said. The region is poised for further growth in 2023 with $12.6 billion in industrial project underway or just getting started, as well as budget surpluses in state and local governments.
“I think you’re going to see Baton Rouge recovering that (job) shortfall in fairly short measure in 2023,” Scott said.
The state’s tally of total employed workers decreased by 20,888 to 2,021,387 in December. That figure is an increase of 33,259 from December 2021. Meanwhile, unemployed individuals increased from 61,710 in November to 70,011 in December but are down from 2021 by about 3,500.
Meanwhile, Louisiana’s miniscule unemployment rate increased slightly, going from a record low 2.9% in November to 3.3% in December. It’s the third lowest rate the state has recorded and the lowest ever figure for the month of December.
All of Louisiana’s metro areas posted small unemployment rate increases, according to LWC data. Though six metro areas had rates under 3% in November, only one — Alexandria — had a rate under 3% in December.
South Louisiana’s three largest metro areas — New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Lafayette — each posted a 0.4 percentage point increase in their unemployment rate in December. New Orleans was up to 3.5%, while Lafayette was at 3.1% and Baton Rouge was at 3%.
Scott said unemployment rates are not always the best metric to judge Louisiana’s economy because the sample size is generally too small.
“The fact that employment went up and unemployment rate went up sounds counterintuitive,” Scott said. “But the primary reason how that can happen is more people entered the workforce.”