BATON ROUGE – Based on Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) data released on Friday, January 18, Louisiana’s not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points from November 2018 to 4.3 percent.
As it stands, the 2018 not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate annual average is 4.8 percent. When compared to other historical not-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate annual averages, this is Louisiana’s 3rd lowest annual average in the series history.
The annual average unemployment rate can be derived only from not seasonally adjusted unemployment rate data. Seasonal adjustments incorporate seasonal employment patterns that are not appropriate when annualizing unemployment rates.
The number of not seasonally adjusted unemployed individuals decreased by 3,938 from November 2018 to 90,463.
Not-seasonally adjusted December unemployment rate for the Shreveport metropolitan statistical area (MSA) was 4.7 percent, down from 4.9 percent in November, but up from 4.3 percent from December 2017.
