Job report shows some employment recovery from storms

Louisiana’s non-farm job payrolls grew by only about 700 workers since September, but is up 75,700 since October a year ago, the state Labor Department reported Tuesday.
The largest change from September was seen in government, which lost 3,200 jobs. Government was also the only area with a major loss 12,100 over the year.
The state’s non-farm work force hit a low of 1.72 million in October 2005, after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and was nearly 1.9 million last month.
“Louisiana is continuing to come back as residents repair and rebuild their homes and employers continue to reestablish and expand their businesses,” state Secretary of Labor John Warner Smith said.
Total non-farm employment in the hard-hit New Orleans metro area was up 49,700 from a year ago, two months after Hurricane Katrina but 165,500 below the figure for October 2004.
The report did not include self-employed workers and people working in Louisiana for out-of-state employers two categories tied closely to the hurricane rebuilding effort.
Trade, transportation and utilities lost 1,000 jobs from last month, and construction lost 800. The largest one-month growth was 1,900 jobs in leisure and hospitality, and more than 1,000 each in education and health care services, and in other services.
Over the year, the biggest increase was in trade, transportation and utilities, which gained 22,900 jobs.
Construction gained 15,400; the professional and business activities sector 14,900, and leisure and hospitality gained 13,200 jobs.
Educational and health care gained 8,200, financial activities 4,200, other services 3,700, manufacturing 3,200, and natural resources and mining gained 2,400 jobs.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the October unemployment rate for Louisiana was 4.2 percent, an increase from the September rate of 3.7 percent, as the work force grew by about 10,800 workers and the number of unemployed by almost 10,100.
The national unemployment rate for October was 4.4 percent, down from 4.6 percent in September.