Baton Rouge unemployment rates and the number of people in the workforce continued to rise simultaneously in October and November 2019 compared to the previous year.
The latest non-seasonally adjusted data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the local unemployment rate was 4.3% in October 2019, up slightly from 4.2% the year before. In November, unemployment grew to 4.4%, up from 3.8% in the same month in 2018 and more than a whole percentage point higher than the national rate of 3.3%.
Despite the unemployment rise, the city’s labor force also continued to grow over that two-month period, reaching more than 423,000 in November 2019. At the same time in 2018, the Baton Rouge workforce totaled just under 420,000.
Statewide, the unemployment rate reached 4.8% in November 2019, up from 4.3% the year before. Louisiana tied for the 47th/48th highest unemployment rate in the country with West Virginia. Washington, D.C. (5%), Mississippi (5.5%) and Alaska (6%) were the only states with higher unemployment in November.
Of the state’s eight metropolitan areas included in the November data, Monroe reported the highest unemployment rate at 5.6% while Lake Charles reported the lowest at 4%. The Baton Rouge area’s unemployment tied for the second-lowest with New Orleans and Metairie.
The nation’s highest metropolitan unemployment rates for November were reported in El Centro, California, and Yuma, Arizona, at 20.6% and 15.4%, respectively.
The lowest were in Logan, Utah/Idaho, and Ames, Iowa, at 1.5% and 1.6%, respectively.
Check out the full data report here.
