Louisiana Reaches All-time High In Number Of People Employed

Latest job numbers show that more Louisiana residents are employed than ever before. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, just over two-million people were employed last month, an increase of 47,000 from the previous April.

Executive Director of the Louisiana Workforce Commission, Ava Dejoie, says certain sectors of Louisiana’s economy continue to do well.

“Construction, education, and healthcare. And leisure and hospitality as well”.

The state’s unemployment rate fell nearly one-percent from April of 2017 to April 2018. Dejoie says education and health services added 78-hundred jobs for the year, while leisure and hospitality gained 67-hundred jobs.

“We’ve been very focused on our training programs, on apprenticeship programs. We’ve had great announcements from economic development”.

Dejoie says the leisure and hospitality industry, along with technology and construction helped New Orleans gain 29-hundred jobs in the past month. Houma’s job numbers remained steady over the last month, but she says there’s been a 500-percent job gain in that market over the year.

“We are doing all sorts of training programs. For example down in Houma, we have an alignment training program going on that those participants will go to work immediately in the energy sector”.

Categories: State News