The Economic Outlook for Louisiana

To start, we are having a boom in our petrochemical industry :

“We have counted $45 billion in construction projects in the area, by far a record number for the region,” Scott says. While other parts of the country struggle economically, the Capital Region is experiencing growth in part from its expanding petrochemical industry.

The film industry is also growing.

The recently released Louisiana Economic Outlook highlights:

• Overall, Louisiana should gain 37,200 jobs in 2008, a 1.9 percent growth rate, and a similar growth in 2009, the report said. It also predicts Baton Rouge will add 14,800 jobs in 2008 and 2009. Even though it is a 2 percent growth rate, it is not as heady as the roughly 20,000 jobs Baton Rouge added within 18 months of Hurricane Katrina.

• Population shifts in Louisiana will continue to aggravate labor shortages, with incentives emerging to keep older workers in the work force and more outsourcing and immigration encouraged. Shortages will be worst in the construction field.
• New Orleans will continue to add jobs at a rate of about 1,000 a month, a growth rate of about 2.4 percent, and the city’s economy will be buoyed by about $16 billion in planned projects.
• Lafayette will leverage an expanding energy economy and hospital and retail growth to create 6,300 new jobs over the next two years, making it one of the state’s hottest metro areas.
• Shreveport/Bossier City should gain 5,800 jobs during the two-year cycle, but a decision to make Barksdale Air Force Base the permanent home for the military’s cyberspace command could make the forecast “wildly too pessimistic” the Outlook authors said.
• Lake Charles is fully recovered, from a job standpoint, from the effects of Hurricane Rita, and will gain 2,800 jobs during the next two years. A $1.4 billion synthetic gas manufacturing plant could become the city’s largest single capital investment.
• High energy prices and shipbuilding activity also will boost Houma, where an expected 5,200 jobs will be created in 2008 and 2009. Oil prices will vary from $58 to $72 a barrel, the report predicts, though recent prices have spiked to the upper $80s.
• More modest growth is forecast in Alexandria (700 to 1,000 new jobs per year) and in Monroe (about 650 new jobs a year).
• Job growth of about 1.8 percent is predicted in the 35 or so mostly rural parishes, though growth will be stronger in St. Mary (energy, fabrication and casino growth); Tangipahoa (retail and service growth spillover from New Orleans) and Vernon (prospects for a potential 4,000-person brigade to be added to Fort Polk).

For a full summary, please click here (pdf).

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This entry was posted on January 21, 2008 at 4:22 pm and is filed under Data Bank, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.