Lafourche, Terrebonne see slight rise in jobless rate

Lafourche, Terrebonne, and Lafayette parishes continue to show the lowest unemployment rates of all parishes in Louisiana, according to figures released this week from Louisiana Works, though both Lafourche and Terrebonne saw their unemployment rates rise from those in April.

Terrebonne’s unemployment rate increased one-tenth percent from April to August, but Lafourche’s rose three-tenths percent during the same period. Terrebonne and Lafourche have 2.7 percent unemployment rates.

Both parishes showed slight declines in unemployment from July to August.

St. Mary Parish had a four percent unemployment rate in August, a three-tenths percent decrease from July.

Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux is classified as a Metropolitan Statistical Area with the U.S. Census Bureau. The area had a civilian labor force of 100,702 in August – 53,146 in Terrebonne and 47,556 in Lafourche.

Both parishes showed 2.9 percent unemployment in August 2006.

The civilian labor force is the number of employed persons added to the number of persons looking for work.

St. Mary Parish/Morgan City, classified as a Micropolitan Statistical Area with the U.S. Census Bureau, had a civilian labor force of 22,810 in August. The parish’s unemployment rate is four percent.

Baton Rouge’s unemployment rate was 3.9 percent in August. The rate for the New Orleans area was 4.2 percent.

The state had a civilian labor force of 1,979,201. The number of nonfarm jobs in Louisiana is 1,926,000. Nonfarm employment is the civilian labor force excluding agricultural workers, the self-employed, unpaid family workers, and domestic workers.

The trade, transportation and utilities sector in the state employs the most workers at 383,000, followed closely by government at 358,800.

Educational and health services employ 247,000 in Louisiana, while workers in construction and manufacturing combined total 293,700.

Leisure and hospitality employ 196,800. The natural resources and mining industries have 50,900 workers.