New Jobs in Louisiana Despite Growing Unemployment

 The economy is slowly changing in Louisiana.  In March, employers added 10,300 nonfarm jobs over the year.  Since a year ago last March, 20,800 private sector jobs have come into the state at the same time as 10,500 government jobs ceased to exist.  When those government jobs disappear, who is paying the consequences?  Children?  Workers?  Senior citizens?

Most of the industry sectors showed over-the-year gains, led by education and health services with a total of 275,700 jobs, up 6,000 from March 2010. Why then do statistics suggest that less people are working?  How do these high figures of unemployment fit into the general reported job growth?  Over the last month, 10,219 less people are working and 19,035 over the last year.  The number of unemployed in March was 168,768, up 3,918 from February.

These statistics from Louisiana don’t seem to quite add up.  It seems like more jobs are disappearing than have been accounted for.  Either that, or a lot of people happily retired last month.

One of the jobs to disappear is work for a paper and pulp industry. Employees in Zwolle of Weyerhaeuser NR Company were affected by layoffs.  Newly unemployed workers will be able to receive some support through Trade Adjustment Assistance.  Hopefully, workers will find that they will be able to find work in their geographic region with the support of their local governments.  The company which is laying off workers has been named by the Environmental Protection Agency as a potentially responsible party for at least 18 Superfund toxic waste sites.