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September 4, 2007
BATON ROUGE - If you have ever gotten a call at home asking if anyone age 16 or older in your household is looking for a job, you have participated in the process that determines the state's unemployment rate.
The same type of survey is conducted by the Census Bureau calling businesses to determine how many jobs are filled in Metropolitan Statistical Areas.
"Anybody 16 and over who is actively looking for work is included," said Patty Lopez, manager of labor market information for the state. "Anybody who says 'I called my uncle looking for a job' is considered unemployed."
For that reason, state unemployment rates traditionally rise during summer months and holidays when school is out, Lopez said.
In some years, such as 2006, the figures don't fall that way because there were plenty of jobs available, the statistics show.
January rates are traditionally higher because stores increase hiring for the Christmas season, and then lay off the part-time help when the shopping rush is over. The layoffs traditionally happen well before the 12th of the month when the employment surveys are conducted.
Since the 1970s, Louisiana's worst employment period was in the 1980s when the oil industry, the state's major employer, went bust.
Unemployment was constantly in the 10-12 percent range from 1982 to 1988 when the state's effort to grow a new economy started taking shape. By 1990, the unemployment rate was cut in half. Riverboat casino gambling was approved in 1991.
When the unemployment survey was done in August 2005, only 4.9 percent of the eligible workforce was without a job.
A month later, the impact of Hurricane Katrina caused the count to jump to 10.9 and post-Hurricane Rita, it climbed to 11.2 in October and 11.4 in November. The number of claims almost drained a special unemployment fund in the state treasury.
But by December, the unemployment rate dropped back to 6.4 and by January fell to 4.6 percent, the highest month in all of 2006.
Lopez said the primary factor was that so many businesses had closed after the hurricanes that the Department of Labor dropped its requirement that applicants for unemployment benefits actively pursue jobs. In December, the requirement was re-imposed.
"By this time, many people had relocated," she said. "All of a sudden, claims by people dropped significantly. A number of people who were unemployed didn't know their employers had kept them on the payroll."
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