The C4 Report: Louisiana Strong! Part 1

Central, Louisiana is a great place to be living!  Louisiana is on the rise and Central is as well!  So often it is easy to hear all the negatives and not realize that there are tremendous developments taking place!  Last week’s Membership Luncheon reminded us of that fact and proved to be a fantastic meeting!  Besides the normal networking with other businesses, special business promotions, enjoying a good lunch, and giving away door prizes, we were treated to an informative presentation by Louisiana Secretary of Economic Development, Stephen Moret. 

In his presentation, Mr. Moret gave a brief history on Louisiana's dramatically improved business climate image and rankings. In the last 4.5 years, Louisiana has improved to it’s highest-ever position on every national ranking of state business climates, which is helping us attract more prospects and higher quality projects.

In the area of employment Louisiana has also done well.  For instance, since bottoming out in 2009 Louisiana has seen a consistent rise in job growth. Since the recession began, Louisiana has continued to outperform the South and the nation in employment levels.  The following from an article released by the US Chamber’s Southwest/South Central Regional Update Newsletter, dated June 18, 2012 bears this out.  

“Not everyone, or every state, accepts the notion of inevitable, slow growth and gradual decline. From the onset of the recession, some states have largely avoided the downturn. By the end of 2011, six states – North Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, Utah, Texas, and Montana – showed more than 8% job growth over the past decade. Another 22 had shown some, although less robust, employment increases compared to 2001.

More important still, nearly every state enjoyed some overall private-sector job growth between January 2011 and January 2012. Most critically, growth has spread to many states hardest hit by the recession, including Michigan, California, and Florida. The strongest job growth continued to take place in other states, notably Louisiana, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and North Dakota.”

Louisiana is poised to become an economic powerhouse of the South.  Mr. Moret pointed out that there are several reasons to be optimistic about Louisiana’s Economic future.  Next week we will look at some of those reasons.