The doctor is out: Family and general practice physicians are among the most in demand professions across Louisiana, according to the Louisiana Star Jobs list of occupations used by the Louisiana Workforce Commission. As Gannett Louisiana reports, the average annual wage for family and general practice in Louisiana in 2013, the latest information available, was $163,950. “Presently, our population is getting much older and we’ll have a much larger population of older Americans. Our schools are generating fewer primary care physicians as more go into specialty areas,” says Dr. Ronald C. Hubbard, a board certified internal medicine physician in Monroe. “It has been projected that we will have a shortage of as many as 90,000 physicians.” Read the full story.
Flipping the script: U.S. manufacturers have not soaked up as much excess shale gas in the first half of 2015 as expected, but the shortfall may be an anomaly as a Gulf Coast manufacturing boom is poised to insulate the sector from seasonal demand fluctuations. Average industrial demand for gas in 2015 was expected to increase nearly 4% over 2014, according to federal energy forecasts. But almost halfway through the year, it has eased about 1% to 21.7 billion cubic feet per day from 22 bcfd a year earlier, according to Thomson Reuters Analytics. The primary reason for the decline was a milder winter this year than last year’s brutal cold in the heavily industrialized U.S. Midwest and Gulf Coast. Read the full story.
Across the great divide: U.S. CEOs made 303 times as much as the average worker in 2014, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute to be released today. As USA Today reports, the report from the left-leaning think tank found that average CEO compensation for the largest firms was $16.3 million in 2014, an increase of 3.9% from last year and 54.3% since the end of the financial crisis in 2009. But not only are CEOs making more money than the average worker, they’re also making more money than other top wage earners. CEO compensation in 2013 was almost six times higher than others in the top 0.1% of earners, according to the report. Read the full story.
