Its Labor Day and the job market in the state is getting lots of attention in the governor’s race with the Edwards administration touting full employment, but the Republican challengers say the state is the only one to have lost jobs over the last year. LSU Economist Loren Scott says the economy is not growing at a rapid pace.
“It doesn’t matter which data set you use, the seasonally adjusted or unseasonally adjusted, the economy is not growing very fast at all, I think we are growing less than 0.5%,” said Scott.
Scott says two factors contribute to the slowed growth.
“The Gulf of Mexico has not come back yet (from the decline in the gas and oil industry), so that’s really dragged down the Houma area a lot and the second thing is we are kind of in a lull between major projects in the Baton Rouge and Lake Chares area,” said Scott.
Escalating trade tensions with China has some concerned about the possibility of a recession. Scott says of the forecasts he looks at, that doesn’t appear to be in the cards.
“I think they are thinking that either the trade thing is going to get solved or it’s such a small part of the U.S economy it’s not going to be enough to pull us down into a recession,” said Scott.
