42,000 jobs opening in S.E. Louisiana: Report

An ongoing petrochemical, advanced manufacturing and energy boom, coupled with other economic growth and the retirement of baby boomers, will equate to 42,000 job openings in southeast Louisiana over the next seven years, according to a report by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.

As in myriad analyses that preceded last week’s report, optimism of increasing job opportunities is tethered to concerns of a labor market unsuited to fill the positions, authors George Hobor and Elaine Ortiz wrote in “The Transformative Possibility of the New ‘Energy Boom’ in Southeast Louisiana.”

The job openings referenced would carry median wages between $15 and $35 an hour, and most of the openings would be “middle-skilled” jobs requiring a high school degree equivalent complemented with varying levels of training, according to the report.

The report’s authors suggested the gap between open jobs and a skilled workforce can only be closed if the long-term unemployed are recruited.

Since the oil bust in the ‘80s, both black and white working-age males have become disconnected from the job market. In 2012, 56 percent of working-age black men in southeast Louisiana were employed, according to the report; of working-age white men, 76 percent were employed. For those population sets, 33 percent and 20 percent respectively were not in the labor market at all, according to the report.

These unemployed now represent a pool from which to satiate the projected job openings spurred by the same sector the report’s authors attributed with prompting issues of long-term unemployment.

“If so, this could introduce the need for comprehensive job training services and supports, including time and fiscal management, child-care, and post-training oversight, to address the effects associated with long-term unemployment,” the report says.

Louisiana’s unemployment rate stayed low throughout the recession, but southeast Louisiana’s actual employment rate of 65.6 percent doesn’t fare much better than the rest of the nation, according to the report.

“Community and technical colleges will need expanded capacity. Industry must inform training curricula, and sponsor transportation options to bring workers from population centers to work sites along the river and elsewhere,” Hobor said. “Without a doubt the task is complex and will require significant investment. But done right it will infuse a new cadre of outstanding people and ideas into our economy.”

Much of the optimism is rooted in $21 billion worth of new investments in southeast Louisiana announced since 2008 (the report mostly stays away from a similar ongoing boom in southwest Louisiana). Most of that investment was along the Mississippi River’s banks, though clusters of new jobs are anticipated at Port Fourchon, Houma and elsewhere in Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes.

More than 10,000 new jobs are projected for energy and petrochemical manufacturing and advanced manufacturing between now and 2020. The industrial peak is anticipated by 2017, according to the report.

But baby boomers – who began turning 65 in 2011 – could vacate thousands of positions as growth begins taking hold, adding to the totals, authors wrote.

Elected and economic-development officials regularly bemoan the state’s workforce market. As Louisiana remains in the early stages of a job-creation boom, not enough prospective employees are equipped with the skills to fill them.

Employers have sought to fill the jobs with out-of-state workers and higher wages, but those wells are running dry, as labor shortages are a national issue and money, though a motivator, cannot alone give a person necessary skills.

Gov. Bobby Jindal in his 2015 budget has proposed a $40 million allocation for educational workforce development. Higher education institutions will compete against each other for this pot, with money doled out based upon the number of graduates a school produces in high-demand fields.