The economic forecast for Louisiana over the next two years is so positive economist Loren Scott says he ran out of superlatives in preparing his annual outlook for the region, which he presented today at Business Report‘s Louisiana Business Symposium Top 100 Luncheon.
In his annual forecast, which is co-authored by economist James Richardson, Scott notes that Louisiana has $100 billion in industrial projects either underway or in the front-end engineering and design, or FEED, stage. Of those, more than $60 billion are sure bets, meaning they are already under construction or complete.
“We’re really in an unusual time,” Scott said. “In the past, a good year was $5 billion in new projects. Today, we’re talking about more than $100 billion.”
Those new projects, though primarily in the industrial construction sector, also include new high-tech projects in Baton Rouge like IBM and Sistix, and are expected to create some 66,700 jobs statewide over the next two years.
“This year we outperformed the most aggressive numbers that were forecast here last year by Loren,” BRAC President and CEO Adam Knapp told Daily Report following Scott’s presentation this afternoon. “So the bigger question is, are we on track to continue to outperform?”
Scott said he believes low natural gas prices in the U.S., high natural gas prices in Europe and the differential between oil and natural gas prices will ensure continued growth in Louisiana, which he predicts will have more than 2,000,000 non-farm jobs for the first time in 2015. Three potential problems could throw things off track, however. They include the possibility the EPA will lower ozone emissions standards, the impact of the Affordable Care Act on big business and the lack of office space in the Capital Region.
“If the EPA lowers ozone standards, we’ve got a serious problem,” he said. “There will be a major break in all these projects.”
Another challenge companies are working through is finding enough skilled workers to fill the anticipated job boom. Turner Industries CEO Roland Toups, who attended the event, tells Daily Report his company and others in the industrial construction sector have been busy creating worker training initiatives.
“We’re making progress,” Toups says. “But we still have a ways to go. We’re plowing forward.”
Among other high points of the outlook: Metropolitan areas along and south of Interstate 10 will see strong growth, while those north of I-10 are likely to experience only modest employment gains. The Lake Charles metro area is expected to see the fastest job growth in the state by percentage over the next two years by far, with a 12.1% increase.
Access the complete economic outlook for 2015 and 2016. As reported in Daily Report AM, the winners of the inaugural Best Places to Work awards—presented by Business Report, the Greater Baton Rouge Society for Human Resource Management and the Louisiana Workforce Commission—were revealed and honored at an awards breakfast this morning to kick off the annual Louisiana Business Symposium.
