Louisiana Economy Is Not Growing As Expected, Here’s How Employers Are Doing | Business



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It’s been two weeks since the film production Shawn Bohte was working on ended, and he’s back looking for a new job in the New Orleans area.

Bohte, 51, has applied for at least 50 jobs in recent days, mostly in sales where he has decades of experience. He holds an associate’s degree in business administration, but hasn’t gotten any good leads lately as he hopes to find a job paying at least $ 15 an hour.

“I’ve been in sales my whole life,” Bohte said. “But it was pretty tough, I looked in other states because the job market here is pretty bad. There are a lot of jobs there, and I have a really good CV, but I just didn’t get a response. “

Meanwhile, some companies are trying to recruit enough workers to meet demand: Burger King attempted to hire 250 people in Baton Rouge in one day for its franchisees. CVS wants to hire 500 workers across Louisiana, from pharmacists to technicians and retail workers.

Gary Wagner, a business economist in Acadiana at the University of Louisiana at Moody College of Business in Lafayette, was more optimistic about the economic recovery last year than today, as several indicators suggest a slowdown in the business climate. business.

“Between the first and second quarters, the economy grew,” he said. “But companies are finding ways to produce more with fewer people, so that’s likely to be a permanent change.”

The most important metric was that between the first and second quarters, Louisiana’s unemployment rate fell from 7.5% to 7.1%. In a more typical year, this means workers re-enter the workforce.

But this year something else happened: 58,000 workers left the labor market completely, no longer looking for work. Over 20,000 of those workers who left the workforce were in New Orleans. And this trend explains all the improvement in the unemployment rate.

“On the surface, people would look at it and think it’s a good sign,” Wagner said. “The whole reduction in the unemployment rate was that people stopped looking for work; that’s not a good sign.”

By the end of the year, the unemployment rate is expected to drop to 6.6%, but it should likely drop further depending on what it does in a typical year.






Job forecast table

For employers looking to hire professional workers, this means more compromise.

“We have a lot of applicants who say if they can’t work remotely, they’re not interested,” said Jack Hunt, vice president of Hunt, Guillot & Associates, a Baton-based engineering consulting firm. Red.

The company performs federally funded work after natural disasters, which means government contracts may require employees to work together in an office. But for its industrial customers, the remote control is an option. The pool of job seekers is quite large, Hunt said.

“It looks like there are a lot of potential employees,” he said. “We’ve hired a lot of people and found suitable candidates; it hasn’t really been a big deal yet.”

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The US economy is expected to grow by almost 5% on average over the next 12 months. Gross domestic product in 15 states has exceeded pre-pandemic levels, but not yet in Louisiana. The state’s GDP grew at an annualized rate of 4.7% in the first quarter of this year and is expected to grow 4.8% in the second quarter and 3.2% in the third quarter. It is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022.

Louisiana ranks No. 45 in job recovery nationwide.

The state has recovered 39% of the 285,000 jobs lost during the pandemic in 2020. Louisiana’s slower recovery is now expected to create 29,000 jobs over the next 12 months, instead of 71,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, five states have already added all their job losses in 2020.

A quarterly research report conducted by UL used economic forecasting models through an optimistic, pessimistic, and probable baseline for third-quarter economic activity in the state.

Even an optimistic recovery in employment predicted that the state would not recover by July 2022, but rather like July 2024.

The Houma-Thibodaux metropolitan area is expected to find at least 87,100 jobs after 2022.

Jobs in the Baton Rouge metropolitan area reached 407,500 before the pandemic, and are expected to reach 396,300 jobs by mid-2022.

The Lafayette metropolitan area had 205,100 jobs before the pandemic, which is expected to reach 198,600 jobs by mid-2022.

The New Orleans metropolitan area had 588,000 jobs before the pandemic and is expected to reach 548,900 jobs by mid-2022.

The Hammond metropolitan area had 47,000 jobs before the pandemic, on track to reach 46,700 jobs by mid-2022.

The Lake Charles metropolitan area had 111,000 jobs, which are expected to have 96,000 by mid-2022.

Spherion Staffing Baton Rouge saw a sharp drop in new jobs in July 2020. Since COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out earlier this year, the market has improved. Employers are even offering higher wages than before the pandemic, and remote working is common.

However, in general, it has been difficult to find qualified workers for the vacancies.

“It was certainly a challenge to try to find qualified candidates when there was additional unemployment help, but we are still going through a very difficult time,” said Mike Zaunbrecher, owner of Spherion. “There are a lot of jobs there right now.”



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