Louisiana extends its streak of over the year job gains to 13 consecutive months. The state’s Workforce Commission Director Ava Dejoie says since March of 2018, the education/healthcare super-sector has led the way with an additional 7,400 jobs.
“Education is K-12, higher ed, skills development, and healthcare is hospitals, nursing homes, personal care assistants, the people who do the billing in that, even the IT people.”
But nearly all of the year-to-year job gains were powered by hiring in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Lafayette.
North Louisiana is still struggling, with Shreveport in particular down 1,700 jobs since March 2018. Dejoie says to counteract this, they’re training up workers for jobs that start at 40,000 a year.
“We have a huge transportation hiring initiative, our local offices there are doing truck driver training CDL.”
The National Governor’s Association will also meet in Shreveport to discuss the possibility of turning the town into a cyber security hub.
Houma continues to see its economy slip, as the region lost 2,100 jobs from last year. Dejoie says she’s hopeful that rising oil prices can stem the losses.
“Houma, much like Lafayette, is tied to the oil sectors. Hopefully I think we are seeing some international movement, and we continue to watch that.”
The state’s unemployment rate has hit an 11-year low at 3.9%.
