Mike Cohen / CC
The latest Louisiana Economic Activity Forecast indicates recovery of Louisiana jobs in the wake of the pandemic will be a slow process. University of Louisiana at Lafayette economics professor Gary Wagner says there was a slight boost of nearly 28,000 jobs in the last quarter of 2021, and jobs are coming back nicely on a national scale. But the state’s labor force is shrinking.
“In Louisiana, it has continued to drop every month since COVID has hit and in fact, the labor force participation rate in the state right now is the lowest it’s been in 40 years and keep waiting for that to pick up again and it just hasn’t picked up yet,” said Wagner.
Wagner says another 33,000 jobs are expected to be added through the end of this year and be back at pre-COVID levels a year from now. But he says inflation is the greatest threat to the economic recovery.
“So over the last six months, nationally the economic outlook has been downgraded so people are just forecasting slower growth in the national economy and that is going to translate into slower growth in Louisiana,” said Wagner.
Wagner says job growth is expected to be slowest in cities like Alexandria, Houma & Thibodaux, while Baton Rouge, Lake Charles and New Orleans will grow fairly quickly over the next six months.
He says record-high inflation – coupled with very high fuel costs – is adversely affecting employers’ ability to fill needed jobs, and he doesn’t see that getting better very soon.
“The federal reserve has indicated they are going to start raising interest rates likely in March, and I think that is going to slow the economy down which is going to push back that date we are going to recover all of these jobs,” said Wagner.
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