The Louisiana unemployment rate has been lower than the national rate 90 percent of the time since 2002. Most of the variance occurred during several months in 2005 due to Hurricane Katrina, but since then the Louisiana unemployment rate has been consistently below the national average.
The Louisiana labor force is at its highest in years at 535,000 workers and the number of those employed is now 499,000. The number employed is 14 percent higher than at the worst level in 2005 but is still 17 percent less than its peak of 600,000 in June 2005.
Just looking at the difference between the national unemployment rate and the Louisiana rate, called the variance, you can see that Louisiana has enjoyed more people working the last 10 years than the national average. The current unemployment rate in Louisiana is 7.0 percent, compared to the national unemployment rate of 7.9 percent.
Unemployment Rate Varies Widely Among States.The southeastern states are all red showing higher unemployment from 8 to 9.9 percent. Califormia, the 5th largest economy in the world, has unemployment exceeding 10%, along with Nevada.
Sources:
LA Commercial Realty, LLC
Bureau of Labor Statistics. ( all rates not seasonally adjusted, age 16 and over, table ID LNU04000000)
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet
http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm
