Area unemployment rates up

St. Landry Parish’s unemployment rate rose from 7.9 percent in December to 8.6 percent in January, according to federal Bureau of Labor Statistics released by the Louisiana Workforce Commission.
The parish’s jobless rate rose from 6.9 percent in January 2014.
Evangeline Parish’s jobless January jobless rate was 7.6 percent, up from 5.8 percent a year ago.
The rise the jobless rate was accompanied by an increase in the workforce.
There were 31,388 people working in St. Landry Parish in January, up form 30,771 a year ago.
The number of people working in Evangeline Parish in January was 12,390, up from 12,285 a year ago.
The parish numbers are adjusted for season factors such as weather.
The state report said new seasonally adjusted federal data for 2014 shows Louisiana added more jobs and its workforce grew even more than previously estimated, and that the growth continued in January.
The new data shows the average total number of seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs in 2014 was actually 7,300 more than the earlier estimates. That means Louisiana actually added 27,500 total nonfarm jobs over the year.
The new data shows the private sector grew by an annual average of 13,000 more jobs than previously estimated in 2014. That means private sector employers actually added 40,600 jobs from December 2013 through December 2014.
The seasonally adjusted civilian labor force in Louisiana increased by an annual average of 27,133 more people than estimated earlier, to a December total of 2,200,512 people, the new data show. The number of people in the labor force who were working in 2014 grew by an annual average of 6,605 more people than estimated earlier.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics made the adjustments as part of its standard annual benchmarking process of replacing survey data used to prepare monthly bulletins on nonfarm jobs, the labor force and unemployment rates with actual employment data once that data is collected and analyzed.
The job growth continued into January 2015, when seasonally adjusted data show Louisiana’s private sector employers added 30,300 jobs over the January 2014 number, for a new total of 1,663,200 private sector jobs.
That’s the highest January total on record.
Louisiana’s seasonally adjusted civilian labor force grew to a record 2,203,120 people in January — including a record number of people employed in the labor force — while the state’s unemployment rate improved from the benchmarked December figure of 7.2 percent to 7 percent in January. That rate is 1.5 percentage points higher than in January 2014.
The information released from the BLS also includes not seasonally adjusted data for January 2015.
Louisiana’s preliminary not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 7 percent in January 2015, 1.1 points higher than a year earlier, and a 0.5 percentage point increase over the month. The national not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in January was 6.1 percent, a 0.9 percentage point decline over theyear and a 0.7 percentage point increase from December.
--All nine metro areas had over-the-year increases in preliminary not seasonally adjusted unemploymentrates as follows:
— Alexandria: 7.4 percent, up from 6.0 percent in January 2014.
— Baton Rouge: 6.3 percent, up from 5.4 percent.
— Hammond: 8 percent, up from 7 percent.
— Houma: 5.5 percent, up from 4.3 percent.
— Lafayette: 6.1 percent, up from 4.9 percent.
— Lake Charles: 6.2 percent, up from 5.5 percent.
— Monroe: 7.7 percent, up from 6.4 percent.
— New Orleans: 6.9 percent, up from 5.8 percent.
— Shreveport: 7.6 percent, up from 6.6 percent.
The LWC will release seasonally adjusted employment data for February on March 27. Metro area and not seasonally adjusted data for February will be released March 31.