New Orleans adding jobs and people

The University of New Orleans today released its "Metropolitan Report: Economic Indicators for the New Orleans Area."

"1,100 jobs were added to the New Orleans metropolitan area when comparing the first quarters of 2009 and 2008," a university news release noted. "This small gain of 0.2 percent is a welcome sign of stability when compared to the national loss of 3 percent during the same period."    

The report finds, however, that the population is growing faster than the job creation can keep up.

"Unemployment is rising locally with an increase from 3.4 percent to 5.4 percent over the last year. The national rate moved from 4.9 percent to 8.1 percent during the same time," the report says.

A quick look at the math explains the jump in joblessness while there are actually more jobs.

The report notes that the population has been growing by more than 2,000 people per month, according to the latest Census.

"New population figures released by the U.S. Census put the total New Orleans metropolitan population at 1.13 million as of July 2008. Orleans Parish gained 24,000 over the year while the other six parishes gained just under 1,000 people altogether," the release says. "These gains leave Orleans Parish at 69 percent of pre-Katrina levels and the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) as a whole at 87 percent of its old population."

So, while jobs have been growing at nearly 400 per month, that's far below the population increase.

Folks are starting to spend less lately. The report finds after steady growth in sales, the trend is changing.

"Estimates of retail sales in 2008 exceeded those of 2007 by 3.6 percent. This keeps retail sales 23 percent over pre-Katrina levels. However, the first quarter of 2009 shows a drop of 3.8 percent from the same quarter the previous year."

So what's ahead?

UNO forecasts modest job losses for the region before bigger gains by the first quarter of 2011.

"Due to national recessionary pressures, a loss in local employment of 2,200 is expected in the first year of the forecast. As the nation starts to pull out of the recession in 2010, the job trend is expected to reverse with an addition of 5,500 in the second year of the forecast."

Click here to read the report...