January jobless rate up in parish
The Richland Parish unemployment rate increased 1.5 percent in January according to figures released by the Louisiana Works Commission.
The jobless rate for the parish rose from 6.9 percent in December 2019 to 8.4 percent in January 2020. The rate for January 2019 was 6.8 percent.
This reflects 686 people looking for work in January, up from 557 the month before and 558 a year ago. In all, 7,463 people were working in Tensas Parish in January, down from 7,567 the month before and 7,632 the previous year.
Acension, Livingston, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes all had the state’s lowest unemployment rates with 4.8 percent. West Carroll Parish had the states highest jobless rate at 15.4 percent.
Louisiana’s overall unemployment rate rose from 4.9 in December 2019 to 5.7 in January. That is half a percent higher than January 2019.
Meanwhile, the national unemployment rate fell from 4 percent in December 2019 to 3.8 percent in January, also down from 4.1 percent a year ago.
Per revisions from Bureau of Labor & Statistics annual benchmarking procedure, preliminary data released today shows that Louisiana’s not seasonally adjusted annualized unemployment rate for 2019 was 4.8 percent - the third lowest in series history. The annualized average is calculated by averaging not seasonally adjusted monthly unemployment rates.
Benchmarking is BLS’s adjustment procedure to prior years’ data. This procedure which is undertaken by BLS every year, impacts every state when January data is published in March. During this procedure, survey data used to prepare monthly reports on nonfarm employment, the labor force and unemployment rates, is replaced by the actual employment data contained in the quarterly wage and tax reports filed by Louisiana employers. The two data sets that undergo benchmarking are the Current Employment Statistics and Local Area Unemployment Statistics programs.
On an annual basis, the CES program incorporates a benchmark revision that replaces published estimates with data received from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program. QCEW employment levels are based on the Quarterly Wage and Tax Reports filed by Louisiana businesses.
The LAUS program revises at a minimum, five years of previous data to incorporate new inputs and population data. At the state level, LAUS receives new population controls from the Census Bureau, as well as updated CES and Unemployment Insurance claims inputs.
“The Louisiana Workforce Commission is committed to putting people to work,” said Louisiana Workforce Commission Secretary Ava Dejoie “We currently have over 37,000 job openings listed in our state of the art online Helping Individuals Reach Employment (HiRE) network. Please use these tools, as well as the Louisiana Occupational Information System (LOIS) to find your next family-sustaining career. Let’s continue moving forward, together, and putting Louisiana workers first.”
Industries that showed the largest gains for seasonally adjusted jobs for January 2020:
• Leisure and Hospitality gained 4,800 jobs from January 2019 and 500 from December 2019. The Leisure and Hospitality sector is at a series high at 242,700 jobs.
• Education and Health Services gained 3,000 jobs from January 2019 and 100 jobs from December 2019.
• Professional and Business Services gained 200 jobs from January 2019 and 2,900 jobs from December 2019.
• Financial Activities gained 500 jobs from January 2019 and 500 jobs from December 2019.
• Other Services, which includes industries engaged in activities such as equipment-and-machinery repair services, gained 200 jobs from January 2019 and 400 jobs from December 2019.
Among Louisiana’s MSAs in January 2020, seasonally adjusted data shows:
• Alexandria lost 400 jobs from January 2019 and 200 jobs from December 2019.
• Baton Rouge lost 5,100 jobs from January 2019, but gained 900 jobs from December 2019.
• Hammond gained 500 jobs from January 2019, but remained unchanged from December 2019.
• Houma gained 100 jobs from January 2019, but lost 100 jobs from December 2019.
• Lafayette lost 400 jobs from January 2019, but gained 200 jobs from December 2019.
• Lake Charles lost 5,100 jobs from January 2019 and 500 jobs from December 2019.
• Monroe lost 1,200 jobs from January 2019, but remained unchanged from December 2019.
• New Orleans gained 3,900 jobs from January 2019 and 2,600 jobs from December 2019.
• Shreveport lost 1,200 jobs from January 2019, but remained unchanged from December 2019.
Seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment increased by 2,800 jobs from 1,983,900 in December 2019 to 1,986,700 in January 2020. Over that same time period, seasonally adjusted private sector employment increased by 2,700 jobs from 1,651,900 in December 2019 to 1,654,600 in January 2020.
The number of seasonally adjusted employed individuals increased by 2,588 from 1,993,208 in December 2019 to 1,995,796 in January 2020.
Louisiana’s seasonally adjusted civilian labor force, or the number of people who are employed in addition to those looking for work, increased by 4,911 from 2,102,205 in December 2019 to 2,107,116 in January 2020. From January 2019, Louisiana’s seasonally adjusted civilian labor force increased by 9,813.
Louisiana’s preliminary seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for January 2020 is 5.3 percent. Losses in the Construction sector primarily account for the 0.1 percentage point increase from the December 2019 revised and benchmarked unemployment rate of 5.2 percent.