Baton Rouge Reporter

BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Louisiana’s unemployment rate has seen a decrease for two years consecutively and data released by the Federal Bureau of Labor statistics show that the adjusted number of people employed is approaching historic levels.

“We have nearly 60,000 people in higher education institutions getting their Associate’s degree or certificates or their Bachelor’s, we need to keep those people here because we have more than enough open jobs,” said the Senior Vice President of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, Andrew Fitzgerald.

The pandemic left a lot of people without jobs and the state experienced its biggest jump in unemployment rates during 2020. Now it’s restructuring economically stronger with over 2 million employed in just February alone.

Supervisor of the Employment Statistics Unit, Mark Jones said certain industries have grown since the spike.

“The number of employees from our household survey is now the 8th highest in the history of the series and we’re seeing strong gains job-wise in sectors like healthcare, education, manufacturing, as well as leisure which includes hotels and restaurants,” said Jones.

Since January of 2023, the number of seasonally adjusted unemployed individuals has increased from 73 thousand to a little over 75 thousand. Baton Rouge alone has allocated over 12,000 jobs since January of last year. Developers are expected to bring new units to the market’s inventory this year to add to those numbers.

“We’re seeing growth in every sector in terms of jobs outside of retail so construction, manufacturing, professional services financial activity, even restaurants are back to higher job counts than they were before the pandemic,” said Fitzgerald.

The Baton Rouge Area Chamber and The Louisiana Workforce Commission websites are listed under BrWorks and Hire. Consumers in need of a job or looking for suitable career options are advised to visit either site for a list of dependable options.

Original source can be found here.