Help needed: Retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré tells Daily Report he is working with Together Baton Rouge to launch a major house-gutting operation on Saturday. The operation, called “Gut Check Saturday,” will start at 8:30 a.m. at First United Methodist Church, 930 North Blvd. Homeowners will receive supplies and will be paired with a group of volunteers who will help gut and work on the flood-damaged homes before mold can grow and make long-term recovery difficult. Honoré says Together Baton Rouge needs both homeowners and volunteers to sign up for the event. Volunteers also are needed to help run registration. Honoré is asking for everyone to bring as many tools, such as shovels, power drills and crowbars, as possible. Those interested in taking part or in need of help can sign up online.
Disappointing: Louisiana had fewer jobs and fewer workers in July, as weakness reasserted itself in the state’s economy. The Associated Press reports that Louisiana’s unemployment rate ticked up to 6.3% after falling to 6.2% in June. Louisiana’s jobless rate was 6.1% in July 2015. Workers left the labor force, but the number of unemployed Louisianans was flat at 135,000 from June. Louisiana had July’s fourth-highest jobless rate among states, with Alaska worst at 6.7%. The nationwide jobless rate was 4.9%. Employer payrolls, used by many economists as their top labor market indicator, fell slightly in July, and were 14,000 below July 2015 levels. Louisiana payrolls have stabilized after oil and gas employment dropped. Both sets of figures, adjusted to cancel out seasonal changes, were released today by the U.S. Labor Department.
Going up: Louisiana gained one active oil and gas rig offshore this week, bringing the state’s total number of rigs searching for oil and gas to 43, up from 42 last week. Houston oilfield services company Baker Hughes Inc. says that, in all, Louisiana has 15 rigs inland in north Louisiana; three rigs inland in south Louisiana; 17 rigs offshore in south Louisiana; and eight on land in south Louisiana. The state’s average rig count for all of August is 42. Around this time last year Louisiana had 77 active oil and gas rigs. The number of rigs exploring for oil and natural gas in the U.S. increased by 10 this week to 491, The Associated Press reports. A year ago, 885 rigs were active. Depressed energy prices have sharply curtailed oil and gas exploration. Of the active rigs, 406 sought oil and 83 explored for natural gas this week. Two were listed as miscellaneous.
