Across much of the country, a skilled craft labor shortage has construction firms—particularly those operating in the Dallas, Phoenix and Los Angeles areas—getting increasingly creative to find the talent necessary to unclog a pipeline of industrial and commercial projects.
This is not the situation in Baton Rouge.
Here, demand is on the decline. Construction employment in August was down 2,600 workers, or 5%, over a 12-month period, ranking Baton Rouge second nationally in terms of construction job losses.
Economist Loren Scott, in his 2020 Louisiana Economic Outlook, describes the Baton Rouge metro area as being in the midst of an industrial construction “lull,” or a trough between two crests of explosive industrial activity.
Exacerbating the situationl, says David Helveston, president of ABC Pelican, are several challenges deeply ingrained in Baton Rouge’s political and business fabric. These include, most significantly, the continued uncertainty surrounding the industrial tax exemption program, as well as other issues related to the state’s tax code. This comes at a time when cities in Texas, like Beaumont, Baytown and Corpus Christi are rolling out the incentive carpet for industrial investors.
Scott, however, is optimistic about growth next year, citing an upcoming round of planned large-scale private investments—including the Shintech expansion ($1.5 billion), a new methanol unit for Methanex ($1.4 billion) and a new Shell Chemical unit ($1.2 billion)—which are expected to get underway in the next few months.
“That being said, these projects are not assured. They can go away, and they can move to Texas,” Helveston says. Read the full story from the Nov. 5 edition of Business Report. Send comments to editor@businessreport.com
