April jobless rate unchanged in La.

Louisiana’s unemployment rate in April held steady from March, although there was an increase in non-farm jobs, the U.S. Labor Department reported today. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the state last month remained unchanged from March at 8.1%. The jobless rate in April 2010 was 7.2%. At the same time, the federal government says that Louisiana added 13,100 non-farm jobs in April—a figure regarded with caution by state labor officials. The non-farm job figure—not adjusted for seasonal variations and based upon payroll numbers—showed a net gain of 14,500 jobs over the past 12 months. The Louisiana Workforce Commission says April was the second month in which a new federally mandated methodology for calculating jobs was implemented; the commission warned that month-to-month comparisons could therefore be suspect. “We will remain cautious about the month-to-month variability, at least until we see how the new methodology plays out over the next year or so,” says Curt Eysink, the Workforce Commission’s executive director. According to the Labor Department, Louisiana has gained 2,100 goods-producing jobs over the past 12 months—including signs of strengthening in the manufacturing sector. About 2,000 manufacturing jobs have been added over the past year, along with 400 in mining-logging, which mostly consists of the petroleum industry in Louisiana. But construction has fallen by 300 jobs.