Beginning of year shows stable trend

While employment isn’t a guarantee for most of the nation’s people, residents of Louisiana can breathe a small sigh of relief.

The Louisiana Workforce Commission released a report last Friday detailing unemployment trends that have continued for nearly a year.

As a whole, the state gained 2,800 seasonally adjusted non-farm jobs from December 2009 to January 2010, according to the report. And although the unemployment rate for January was up slightly, “…it has stayed at or near 7.4 percent since July 2009.”

However, the good fortune didn’t extend to most of Louisiana’s geographical neighbors, as the nation’s unemployment rate for January 2010 was 9.7 percent.

At the time of the report, Louisiana was tied with Colorado for the 14th lowest unemployment rate and was third in the Southern region. But the south didn’t necessarily showcase a winning trend either, as eight states in the region had unemployment rates reaching above 10 percent in January 2010.

On a positive note, Louisiana’s civilian labor force saw a boost, as more than 2 million people were working or looking for work during the month-long period.

The number of people employed in January increased by about 3,500. However, the number of people unemployed during the same month also increased by more than 2,000.

LWC Executive Director Curt Eysink was fairly optimistic in the release.

“This year’s job numbers for January are consistent with the labor pattern seen in previous Januarys,” he explained.

“Louisiana continues to outperform the South. The number of people in the labor force increased; the unemployment rate held steady. That is encouraging.”

The education and health services sectors were both found in positive lights, adding around 3,600 workers from December 2009 to January 2010. Professional and business services saw the second largest increase with 1,300 new workers.

Leisure and hospitality, manufacturing and government all lost jobs during the period.

Decreasing numbers of initial unemployment insurance claims is also a good sign for the state.

Initial claims for the week ending March 6 fell to roughly 4,000 from the previous week’s total of 4,203, according to numbers produced by LWC. About 4,500 claims were processed during the same time in 2009.

However, continued claims for unemployment insurance aren’t putting off the same signals. While numbers decreased slightly during the weeklong period, the amount of continued claims stayed staggeringly high at about 60,000 compared to more than 40,000 during the same period last year.

Initial and continued claims in St. Mary and Terrebonne parishes were neck-and-neck, while Lafourche steamed ahead. St. Mary had 56 initial claims and 1,011 continued; Terrebonne processed 76 initial claims and 1,082 continued; and Lafourche produced 63 initial claims and a low 794 continued.

Seasonally unadjusted numbers – which reflect people leaving seasonal and temporary jobs created by the holidays – show the unemployment rate rose one percent, from 7.2 to 8.2 percent between December 2009 and January 2010.

Numbers from January 2009 show unemployment rates in Terrebonne and Lafourche nearing 4 percent, while preliminary numbers from January reveal rates at or above 6 percent for both parishes.

About 3,500 people were unemployed in Terrebonne Parish in January 2010.

During the same time last year, around 2,000 were unemployed.

The same trend holds true for Lafourche, which saw about 1,000 jobs disappear over the year.

The condition in St. Mary is even worse, as the unemployment rate has almost doubled from January 2009 to January 2010, where it stood at 10.3 percent, according to numbers released by LWC.