Jobless claims for the country remain high due to a myriad of issues globally and on the homefront. Meanwhile, it appears Louisiana's economy is bouncing back, not even a month after Hurricane Ida tore through the state. Newell spoke with Mark Hamrick, Senior Economic analyst for Bankrate.com, about Louisiana’s bounce back.
"Where does Louisiana stand in terms of jobless claims and figures?" Newell asked.
"With these national jobless claims numbers, Louisiana, actually to some degree, helped to elevate these claims in recent weeks, but not so much in the latest week,” Hamrick said. “To remind people, we're really talking about people who are filing for unemployment benefits for the very first time. So this is basically a reflection of fresh jobs."
"What's interesting is we see articles about ships lined up off of the coast of Long Beach, California, not being able to get into port and it's getting worse. It was a very simple question. Where did all of these people go, the folks who were operating the trains, who were running operations at the docks at the waterfront? Where did they disappear to?" Newell asked.
“Well, in some cases they didn't go anywhere and in some cases, they did go somewhere,” Hamrick said. “In the case of the port of Long Beach, I've heard the person who runs the operation say, essentially, they're working full shifts,seven days a week… It's about this crazy and unpredictable aspect of supply and demand, whether it's with things or workers is almost impossible right now. Either it's unpredictable or the demand is essentially at a level where it just can't be matched… for example, the semiconductor or computer chip issue. The automobile makers can't get enough computer chips. I've found through our pre-Labor Day survey that people are really looking for something different in employment. The reality is that people aren't as willing to accept the level of pay in some of those locations, not to mention the working conditions or just the nature of the job. Ultimately some of the compensation that people might be looking for isn't going to be offered to them."
“Does this friction continue for the next set of quarters, maybe the next four quarters, five, six, or seven? Will this turn into years and how do you break free of this? At some point in order for the economy to really get to that robust era something's got to give, right?" Newell asked.
"So many moving pieces... and not all pieces are going to move at the same rate or in the same direction at the same time. If we carve out something about retail or bars and restaurants, which are obviously so important to a city like New Orleans, I feel like those leisure and hospitality spaces are going to right themselves before the semiconductor space, for example, where you're literally talking about a billion parts to a single product. It takes literally years to create that manufacturing capability." Hamrick said.
Hear the entire interview in the audio player below.