Louisiana’s workforce participation growth tied for the most in the nation, with 58.8% of the working-age population in the labor force. That’s nearly a 1% increase from last year, accounting for almost 33,000 new workers.
Louisiana Works Secretary Susie Schowen said workforce participation is a key economic indicator.
“It really does tie pretty strongly to poverty rates and heavy reliance on social benefits programs and things like that,” said Schowen.
The national labor force participation rate declined by 0.6%. Louisiana was one of five states to see an increase.
Schowen said her agency suspects many of the new workers are people who previously were not pursuing employment but now are. She said it’s hard to pin down, but it could also be credited to more Louisiana graduates staying in-state.
“We may very well be looking at some sort of reversal of the brain drain, but also, we do know that our social benefits rolls are shrinking,” said Schowen.
Louisiana was number one in the country for construction employment growth, largely thanks to the recent investments in data center and manufacturing projects across the state. Over 9,000 new construction jobs came to the state in the last year. Schowen said Louisiana can’t entice new workers without having good jobs available.
“We see the growth in construction jobs, we see the growth in people moving into the workforce and we see the decline in people receiving social benefits,” said Schowen. “All those things happen together.”
