With a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 4.5%, Louisiana’s jobless rate for October was significantly above the national average of 3.6%, according to preliminary data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Louisiana’s seasonally adjusted unemployment is also up from the month before, with 4.3% of the state’s workforce unemployed in September. However, the state is performing better than the same month in 2018, when 4.9% of its workforce was jobless.
In total, 94,173 Louisiana residents were unemployed last month—again, up from September 2019 but down from October 2018, when that number reached 102,277.
Yet, as seen in previous BLS reports, Louisiana is simultaneously experiencing a dwindling civilian labor force. Case in point: the state’s labor force from last month (2,095,516) is some 3,400 people down from its October 2018 count (2,098,880).
On a positive note, Louisiana’s employed population has slowly increased over the past few months, with small increases noticed each month since at least August.
Across the U.S., unemployment rates were lower in October in four states, higher in two states and stable in 44 states and Washington, D.C. Vermont reported the lowest unemployment rate in October (2.2%), while Alaska reported the highest (6.2%).
Read the original BLS news release, and check out the labor force data for each state.
