The 2022-2023 Louisiana Economic Forecast projects that by the end of the year the New Orleans region will only recover 65% of the 104,000 jobs it lost since the start of the pandemic. That lags behind most other regions of the state, including Baton Rouge, Houma, and Lafayette, which are expected to recover 81 percent, 77 percent, and 69 percent respectively.
The forecast was published by LSU Economist Dr. Loren Scott. He told WWL that the biggest thing holding back the metro area’s recovery is the lack of convention traffic.
“The Morial Convention Center is the sixth-largest convention center in the United States and one of the hardest-hit areas during this time period was the convention business,” said Scott.
Despite the tourism woes, New Orleans did see a big boost from the statewide splurging we saw at casinos.
“They are setting some really record levels of gross revenues,” said Scott. “Mainly because that is one of the places where people spent that federal stimulus money.”
While the outlook for the rest of 2021 is pretty bleak for New Orleans Scott expects an aggressive recovery over the next 24 months, pandemic allowing.
“We have you picking up in the neighborhood of 43,000 jobs over 22’ and 23’,” said Scott.
Scott said aside from tourism there are two ancillary factors that could alter the forecast: oil and gas lease sales and major industrial construction projects.
Scott said if the Biden Administration were to revert to its previous policy of blocking new lease sales in the Gulf that would lower the forecasted recovery of jobs. One change that would make the forecast a bit rosier would be the final go-ahead for industrial projects like Formosa in St. James Parish and Venture Global LNG in Plaquemines.
“There is a couple of these really big projects where if we really go to the next step and say, we’re going to do this, we’re going to build this, that could really help New Orleans pull out of this faster,” said Scott.
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