The annual and quarterly Employment and Wages publications contain major industry employment, total quarterly wages paid, average weekly wage by major industry group, and the number of units (employers) at the parish, regional labor market area (RLMA), and statewide levels. The annual publication (PDF) lists average weekly wages by industry for all parishes, totaled by RLMAs and statewide. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) report for the first quarter of each year contains data on size of firms by parish, RLMAs, and statewide. Together, this data provides a stable economic indicator of growth or decline at the parish level. For example, one can look at the increase of employers and see what industries are adding firms or workers, as well as whether or not wages are increasing and if they are keeping up with employment gains. Information on how the Hurricanes impacted the statistics collected by this BLS program can be found here.
The Labor Market Information Unit prepares an annual book titled Louisiana Labor Force Diversity Data (PDF) to give employers, researchers, and students the latest available annual average population and labor force broken out by race and gender. The data is compiled at the state, MSA, and individual parish levels.
The Mass Layoff Statistics program identifies establishments that have experienced a permanent mass layoff or plant closing. The federal definition of a mass layoff is 50 or more employees who are separated from a specific employer, and this layoff must last 30 days or longer. Data can be accessed from the Web link: http://stats.bls.gov/mls/home.htm.
The Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Unit surveys Louisiana employers to gather data on the incidence rate of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses. The data is available statewide at the two-, three-, and some four-digit SIC levels. Reports are also generated on the number of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses involving days away from work by selected worker characteristics and industry division. The Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program surveys employers to collect statistics on fatal occupational injuries. Available reports include data by event or exposure, characteristics (examples: age, race, self-employed), occupation, and industry. Results of this survey can be requested from R&S and are available on our Web site.
Answers to questions such as these can be found in the excel files located on the Labor Market Information menu, under Employment Projections (2002 - 2012) as well as under Occupational Information on the LOIS/Scorecard portion of our Web site. The recently released projections are for 2002 to 2012 for the state and each of the eight RLMAs. This information is an important tool for career decisions, grant applications, and school counselors.
We keep on file per capita income for the state and parishes, annual estimates of population by parish, Census data such as poverty rates by parish, commuting patterns, and data produced in R&S such as the unemployment rates. Data are also available by topic on the LOIS/Scorecard portion of the Web site.
This page was last updated on June 27, 2008.