In the final column of his exclusive three-part series for Daily Report, departing Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret lays out his plan for how Louisiana can create 40,000 new jobs per year—a growth rate he says would be “transformational” for the state.
“Positioning Louisiana to add good jobs faster than the South and U.S. on a sustained basis won’t just happen on its own—at least not yet,” says Moret, who is wrapping up his work with LED today and soon will take on new challenges as the next president and CEO of the LSU Foundation. “To fully catch up with states that began working diligently to diversify and grow their economies decades earlier than Louisiana, we need what noted economist Enrico Moretti calls a ‘big push,’ with the state embracing economic growth as its top goal and implementing a range of coordinated initiatives to support that goal.”
As citizens, Moret says, we must embrace economic development and job growth as our top local, regional, and state priority.
“Specifically, we must take action across four key focus areas,” he writes. “The first is talent development. The single most important driver of our state’s future economic success will be our ability to build a world-class, 21st-century workforce.”
The second key focus area, Moret says, is regional development.
“We need to prepare each of Louisiana’s eight regions to maximize its unique potential,” he writes. “We must identify and cultivate more development-ready sites. It might surprise you to learn that the most common reason we lose a manufacturing project is that we now have more companies interested in investing here than we have sites available quickly enough to meet their needs.”
Moret says the third key focus area is industry development, which will require cultivation of a diverse, growth-oriented economic base in every region of Louisiana.
“In an increasingly global economy, we must work aggressively to implement our new master plan for international commerce, as the implementation of that plan alone could yield 15,000 jobs per year through increased trade and foreign direct investment,” he writes. “We also need to shift the way we talk about ourselves as a state. In addition to telling the world about our great food and festivals, we need to more aggressively promote our attractiveness as a great place for entrepreneurs and business investment. We have a great story to tell—we need to get it out there.”
The fourth key focus area is policy development, Moret says.
“We need to adopt thoughtful, economically competitive public policies in Louisiana to create fertile ground for economic growth,” he writes.
Read the full column, and also be sure to check out the first and second columns in Moret’s three-part series for Daily Report. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
Editor’s note: Stephen Moret is wrapping up his last week as secretary of Louisiana Economic Development, a position he’s held since 2008. In an exclusive, three-column series for Daily Report, Moret reflects on his tenure at LED (Part 1); makes the case for robust, diversified economic growth to be Louisiana’s top goal (Part 2); and offers a roadmap for how to accomplish that goal (Part 3).
