Big Story: No Longer a benefit

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THE BIG STORY

No longer a benefit

Will the expiration of federal unemployment payments mean a surge in Baton Rouge-area job applicants? BY CAITIE BURKES

HEADLINER: Federal pandemic unemployment payments are set to expire in Louisiana on July 31.

DID YA’ KNOW: Gov. John Bel Edwards is the first Democratic governor to end the federal payments early.

WHY IT MATTERS: Amid a massive labor shortage, Baton Rougearea employers are hopeful the move—which Edwards agreed to in exchange for a $28 boost to Louisiana’s maximum weekly unemployment benefits beginning next year—will prompt a rash of job applications throughout July.

• It’s predicted to provide needed relief for the Capital Region’s food and accommodation in-

dustry, which posted 20% more job openings in April 2021 than it did in February 2020, before the pandemic. Andrew Fitzgerald, senior director of business intelligence for the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, expects somewhere in the “upper hundreds, maybe low thousands” of people returning to jobs at restaurants, bars and hotels once the federal payments expire.

• The retail industry could also

see some job growth, with some 4,000 job openings to date. However, that figure is roughly the same as before COVID-19.

• Meanwhile, the construction

industry—which, over the past decade, has accounted for much of the job growth in the nine-parish region but was devastated during the pandemic—will likely notice small job gains as the industry right-sizes itself organically, with more projects coming down the pipeline. YES, BUT: Nearly 4,000 of the job openings being advertised in the Capital Region are within the professional business services sector, which Fitzgerald says is more likely the result of “mismatched skill placement” than the $300 supplemental federal pandemic unemployment benefit. The solution to this issue, according to local employers, is an increased focus on upskilling the existing workforce.

• Rising child care costs is another factor that is at least anecdotally holding back jobless people from returning to the workplace. Nationally, the cost of a child care center has jumped 47% on average amid the pandemic, according to a September 2020 report from the Center for American Progress. THE BIG PICTURE: Ultimately, the current labor shortage is a complicated issue that can be traced back to a variety of causes, and not all of them will be solved by the end of the month.

• Fitzgerald estimates just 15%

to 20% of unemployed people in

the Baton Rouge area are avoiding going back to work because of the federal benefits alone.

WHAT’S NEXT: The full effect of Louisiana turning off the federal pandemic unemployment payments won’t be realized until mid-August job data is available in late September.

• However, the job market is pressuring employers to raise their wages, a trend that is expected to play out throughout Baton Rouge over the third quarter and beyond.