The Baton Rouge area didn’t fare as well with job creation in March as it did in February.
The Louisiana Workforce Commission says the Capital Region lost 1,600 jobs last month, but the number of new jobs in the Baton Rouge area was up 3,100 over the prior year.
New Orleans lost the most jobs, 2,100, among all of Louisiana’s metropolitan areas in March, and its year-over-year job numbers remained unchanged.
Alexandria, Houma, Lafayette, Monroe and Shreveport all posted job losses last month, the LWC says. And with the exception of Monroe, all of the aforementioned metro areas were down year over year in terms of job creation. Monroe was up 100 jobs over the year.
The LWC notes that Lake Charles was the only MSA not to lose jobs in March, remaining unchanged for the month and up 4,500 jobs over the year.
The numbers in the new report are seasonally adjusted.
“Since the first quarter of 2017, the LWC has participated in more than 150 hiring events,” LWC Executive Director Ava Dejoie says in a statement. “We will continue to help every person find employment, now that citizens are more confident they can find a job.”
The construction sector posted the largest decrease in jobs, with approximately 6,700 jobs disappearing over the month though still up 7,400 jobs over the year, the commission says.
“This loss may be attributed to the completion of some flood recovery construction,” Dejoie says.
Despite the job losses in most metropolitan areas, Louisiana’s civilian labor force, or the number of people working or looking for work, grew by 7,100 from the previous month, with gains in sectors like education and health services; professional and business services; trade, transportation and utilities; leisure and hospitality; and mining and logging.
Louisiana’s unemployment rate fell to 5.7% in March, the fourth consecutive month of a rate decline in the Bayou State.
