The Louisiana Workforce Commission reports unemployment in Louisiana has reached a record low. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows the not-seasonally-adjusted jobless rate for April 2022 at just 3.5-percent. LWC Secretary Ava Cates says that’s the lowest rate since 1976 and very good news for Louisiana.
She says, “seasonally adjusted, we are at 4.1, but that is still among the lowest unemployment rates we’ve ever experienced.”
Louisiana has gained over 200-thousand jobs in seasonally adjusted non-farm employment since April 2020. Cates says the data is encouraging, and an indication that more people are going back to work as the pandemic winds down.
“I think we also have a labor force participation rate that is going up as well. We have not reached our historic level of employed individuals, but I think we’re seeing individuals going back into higher paying jobs, and better jobs.”
She says job growth is slowest in cities who rely heavily on the energy industry.
The unemployment rate has been slowly dropping over a two-year period. There’s been gains in health care jobs, transportation jobs and there’s been an increase of over 16-thousand jobs in the leisure & hospitality industry. Cates says tourism and convention business is also returning – particularly in New Orleans, as COVID goes from a pandemic to endemic…
“..so we’ll see some upward ticks there too, I believe…based on all of those conventions coming back into New Orleans,” says Cates.
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