La. still gaining non-farm jobs

Non-farm employment in Louisiana was up 2,000 jobs from March to April, and by 69,500 from April of last year, the state labor department said Friday.

Much of the annual gain is in jobs created by the recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita nearly two years ago, department spokeswoman Patty Lopez said.

She said that includes an unadjusted statewide total of 136,200 construction jobs n the most in a decade. That included an increase of 900 jobs since last month and 4,300 from a year ago.

Both the month-to-month and annual increases were smaller than those of a month ago, when non-farm employment rose by 4,900 jobs for the month and 66,900 for the year. But the economy is moving in the right direction, Lopez said: “We are not having any big layoffs, not having any kind of downward trend.”

Professional business services, including administration support, architecture and engineering, also are the highest in a decade, with 201,000 jobs, Lopez said, noting that those jobs “walk hand in hand with construction.”

The one-year increase of 8,500 jobs included 7,000 in architecture and engineering, she said. “That’s almost 5,000 jobs higher than pre-storm,” Lopez said.

Hospitals gained 4,900 jobs over the year for a total of 64,100 in April: 2,000 below pre-storm totals, she said. And ambulatory health care n including clinics and doctors’ offices n gained 4,400, to 76,300. “That’s slightly higher than it was in April 2005,” Lopez said.

The monthly unemployment report said there were more than 1.9 million people working in nonagricultural jobs in April, according to seasonally adjusted figures.

Trade, transportation and utilities were down by 1,700 jobs n the biggest change from a month ago. The largest drop was in retail jobs, following a national trend, Lopez said.

The state also lost 1,300 manufacturing jobs, with small losses in many sectors, she said.

Government led employment increases with 1,000 new jobs. Construction rose by 900 jobs, while both information and educational and health care services were up 800. Other services reported a 600 job increase from March, and professional and business services rose by 500.

There was no change in natural resources and mining.

Over the year, every sector gained jobs except for the information sector, which lost 1,900 for an April total of 2,600.

Most of the decrease was in telecommunications, including cellular and wireless carriers which have been merging and retooling over the past year, Lopez said. The sector increased by 800 jobs over the month, she noted.

The April 2007 preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Louisiana was 4.3 percent, up from 4.1 percent in March.

The national unemployment rate for April was 4.5 percent.

The March 2007 seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, up from 3.9 percent in February. The national rate for the month was 4.4 percent.

Because the jobless rate is affected by such factors as the number of people actively seeking work and those on unemployment compensation, economists generally look at year-to-year comparisons of non-farm jobs for a gauge of the state’s employment picture.