Employment sees seasonal shifting

Louisiana jobs posted a gain in September that placed the state third in the country in terms of overall employment increases.

With approximately 14,100 nonfarm jobs added in September, Louisiana finished second to only Florida with its 23,300 jobs posted and Texas at 15,400.

According to Louisiana Workforce Commission Labor Market Specialist Ashley Roth, Louisiana had the third highest employment increase (0.7 percent) in the nation, following the District of Columbia at 1.6 percent and Hawaii at 1.1 percent over the previous month.

Job availability in Louisiana depends a great deal on location based on LWC and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics calculations and how those numbers are tabulated.

While overall unemployment figures are typically seasonally adjusted, unemployment rates for Metropolitan Statistical Areas are not.

With no adjustments made, the Houma MSA lead the state with the best unemployment level at 4.7 percent. This figure was down from 4.9 percent from August, and showed an improvement for the third consecutive month.

September unemployment levels in other Louisiana MSAs include Alexandria at 6.5 percent, Baton Rouge at 7 percent, Lafayette at 5.2 percent, Lake Charles at 6.1 percent, Monroe at 7.2 percent, New Orleans at 6.9 percent and Shreveport at 6.3 percent.

Louisiana’s overall non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for September was 6.9 percent, and down from the 7.3 percent posted in August.

The U.S. unemployment rate for September, according to the BSL, was 8.8 percent, which is down from the 9.1 percent listed for August.

The less than one percent increase in Louisiana employment represented the addition of 1,900 construction jobs, 3,600 in professional business services and 5,200 in education and health services. Government jobs saw a boost of 5,000 positions, but most of that represented people returning to work after summer breaks.

“This information comes from a monthly survey of employers,” Roth said. “So, we have a sample. It is not all employers.”

Roth said it would be impractical for monthly tabulators attempt to get exact figures from the state’s approximately 125,000 employers. “We are doing good to get [the sampling] on a quarterly report,” she said.

The LWC, according to Roth, has had the calculating of employment numbers taken over by the federal government. Because of that, numbers may not reflect a completely accurate representation of employment conditions.

“When you look at [unemployment] you are looking at a tract,” she explained. “We had 12 consecutive months of over-the-year job gain. This tells us that the numbers are not part of a monthly [read] but is part of a positive trend.”

Roth said that even with employment increases that account more for people returning from summer patterns than the creation of new living wage jobs, Louisiana 13th lowest in unemployment for September, and is out performing half of all other states.