Louisiana unemployment rate falls to 7.4% in August

Unemployment ticked down in Louisiana in August as some people left the labor force. The state’s jobless rate fell to 7.4%, down from 7.6% in July but above the 7.3% unemployment rate a year ago. Louisiana’s jobless rate never rose as high as the nation’s and fell to a postrecession low of 6.9% in January. Since then, jobless rates rose in five out of six months. August was the first improvement since January. The number of unemployed Louisianans fell to 154,000 from 158,000 in July. In August 2011, the state had 149,000 unemployed people. A separate survey found total Louisiana payrolls rose slightly to 1.95 million in August. That’s 2,000 above the July level and 42,000 above the level a year ago. Unemployment rates rose in more than half of U.S. states last month, the latest evidence that hiring remains tepid across the country. The Labor Department reports that rates increased in 26 states. They fell in 12 states and were unchanged in the other 12. Nationwide, employers added only 96,000 jobs in August. That’s below July’s gain of 141,000 and the average of 226,000 jobs a month added in the January-March quarter. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.1% last month from 8.3% in July. But that was only because many people gave up looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching for jobs.