Louisiana appears to have dug its way out of recession, reaching a three-year low in its unemployment rate as the state finally shows job gains after being hammered by the downslide in the oil and gas industry.
“My story has been Louisiana in recession, but I’m changing my story. I’m saying Louisiana’s in recovery or starting,” Greg Albrecht, the state’s chief economist, tells The Associated Press.
But while the economic picture seems to be improving, the upswing remains slow.
Louisiana continues to have the third-highest jobless rate among states, a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.5% for June, compared to a national rate of 4.4%. And Albrecht warns the job growth is barely reaching positive territory, still “bouncing around” zero.
“We need positive growth, not just less negative, and we seem to be getting that as we’ve gotten into 2017,” he says. “Is it sustained, strong? Not yet.”
Still, Gov. John Bel Edwards cheered the latest unemployment report when it was released Friday, though he noted that the state is not where it should be.
Louisiana had seen declining private-sector employment since August 2015, with the greatest job losses coming in the oil and gas, manufacturing and other high-wage sectors. At one point, the number of people working in the mining sector, which includes the oil and gas industry, had fallen by nearly one-third.
But Albrecht says those overall drops have declined, and the state recently has seen some months of positive job growth.
