Busted

It's gonna get worse before it gets better. (If it gets better.)

Louisiana’s nonfarm employment fell by 19,600 jobs for the 12 months ending in May, as the state lost ground in seven of 11 economic sectors, with the biggest hit once again to the oil and gas industry.

The 1 percent decline dropped Louisiana to 1,979,800 jobs in May, according to preliminary numbers released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was the 10th consecutive month the state posted a year-to-year drop in the number of jobs.

Over the same 12-month period, the U.S. added 38,000 jobs.

The state’s mining and logging sector, which includes oil and gas jobs, plunged by 8,600 jobs, or 18 percent. After 17 consecutive months of year-to-year drops, there are now 40,100 people working in the sector statewide.

Oil prices have fallen to less than $50 per barrel level, deterring drilling activity.

Other hard-hit job sectors in the state were manufacturing, which lost 8,100 jobs over the year; business and personal services, 4,200 jobs; and government, 2,900 jobs.

Also see how we're "bucking the trend" which is always nice. Anyway, I hear Shell isn't done cutting jobs yet either.

Furthermore even the jobs we do "create" in our part of the state, don't provide the sort of support most people need. Here's a Brookings/Data Center report on something called "Opportunity Clusters" in the metro New Orleans region. But that's not important. What's important are the jobs data included in the report. This scary chart, for example, shows us that the greatest number of jobs created in metro New Orleans since 2010 are pretty crappy jobs that pay below our (itself low) average annual wage.



And, of course, we already know the cost of living keeps going up and up. The same report shows that 41 percent of New Orleans families are struggling to make ends meet.

During press gaggle this week about health care, the mayor told reporters we are an "ascending city"

.@MayorLandrieu: "New Orleans is now an ascending city. It's not a descending city." Compares to reviving of NYC, Chicago.

— Elizabeth Crisp (@elizabethcrisp) June 15, 2016

Not sure if he means that in terms of living standards or elevation. In either case, it's the opposite of true.