Editorial: Lake Charles jobs lagging
Last Modified: Monday, July 02, 2012 1:54 PM
While Southwest Louisiana has some encouraging economic development projects on the drawing board, a recent jobs report shows that those promises have not yet translated into an increase in employment for the Lake Charles area.
The Louisiana Workforce Commission released statewide unemployment data for the month of May that it received from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The data for the Lake Charles metropolitan statistical area showed the unemployment rate was 6.9 percent, up .8 percent over the previous month, and up .2 percent over the year. In other words, we’re still headed in the wrong direction.
Statistics for Lake Charles in May noted that 86,000 persons were employed in the area, and 6,334 unemployed.
For the state as a whole, the unemployment rate was 7.1, up .7 percent over the month and down .1 percent over the year. The Southern Region unemployment rate increased by .3 percent over the month to 7.6 percent.
Here are other Louisiana metropolitan rates for May:
• Alexandria: 7.1 percent, up .2 percent over the year.
• Baton Rouge: 7.1 percent, down .2 percent over the year.
• Houma: 5.1 percent, down .4 percent over the year.
• Lafayette: 5.1 percent, down .7 percent over the year.
• Monroe: 7.7 percent, up .2 percent over the year.
• New Orleans: 7.2 percent, up .2 percent over the year.
• Shreveport: 7.0 percent, up .4 percent over the year.
BLS uses separate surveys of employers to estimate nonfarm employment. According to BLS, Louisiana’s total seasonally unadjusted nonfarm employment for April was 1,953,600. The number of seasonally unadjusted private sector jobs for April 2012 was 1,589,400.
Louisiana’s total seasonally unadjusted nonfarm employment for May was 1,949,200, a decrease of 4,400 jobs over the month but an increase of 38,200 jobs over the year. The decrease over the month was led by the seasonal drop in employment of 3,300 in Education and Health Services and a decrease of 1,300 in state government as both public and private schools, colleges, and universities closed or reduced operations for the summer.
Promoting job growth is a never ending task and our area still needs more economic development to bring those unemployment numbers down. It is completely unacceptable to have 6.9 percent of our friends and neighbors unemployed. This editorial was written by a member of the American Press Editorial Board. Its content reflects the collaborative opinion of the Board, whose members include Bobby Dower, Ken Stickney,
Jim Beam, Dennis Spears, Crystal Stevenson and Donna Price.
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