The numbers on Louisiana’s economy don’t really blow you away. They indicate the beginnings of an economic recovery that in a year or two might be unmistakable to folks on the ground. We aren’t booming by any means, at least not yet.

In fact, I asked Grok for an assessment of where the state’s economy is, expressed in data points, and here’s what came back…

Louisiana has shown several signs of emerging economic growth in recent data, particularly in employment, population trends, major investments, and forward-looking forecasts, despite a contraction in real GDP during Q1 2025. Below, I’ve compiled key data points from reliable sources, focusing on indicators from late 2024 through mid-2025 that suggest positive momentum. These include job creation, population shifts, industry expansions, and economic projections. Note that while Q1 2025 saw a GDP dip (likely tied to broader national slowdowns), other metrics point to recovery and growth beginning in Q2 2025 and beyond.Key

Data Points Indicating Economic Growth

1. Job Growth and Employment Milestones:
   • Louisiana marked 51 consecutive months of job growth as of June 2025 data, adding over 20,000 jobs in 2024 alone and surpassing 2 million non-farm jobs in Q2 2025—for only the second time in state history.
   • Every major metro area posted job gains in Q2 2025, with statewide non-farm employment growing by 1.1% over the last year (as of Q1 2025) and 2.2% over the last two years.
   • Eight of ten metro regions saw job increases over the past year, led by Lafayette (+2.0%), New Orleans (+1.7%), and Baton Rouge (+0.8%). Specific additions include 8,900 jobs in New Orleans and 1,800 in Lafayette during 2024.
   • Forecasts project continued employment growth: +0.7% in 2025 (reaching 2,005,940 non-farm jobs) per state outlook, or a more optimistic +2.1% (+42,200 jobs, reaching 2,044,200) from regional models.
2. Unemployment Rate Trends:
   • The unemployment rate stabilized at 4.5% in June 2025, unchanged from May but up slightly from 4.2% in June 2024—still below historical highs and showing resilience amid national fluctuations.
   • It has trended downward slightly from 4.6% at the end of 2024, with projections for a mild rise in Q2 2025 followed by a decline to 4.3% by Q1 2026.
   • This stability supports growth, as Louisiana has fully recovered from COVID-era job losses, with non-farm jobs up 4,100 since February 2020.
3. Population Growth:
   • Louisiana’s population increased by nearly 10,000 in 2024—the first gain in five years—reversing prior out-migration trends, driven mainly by international migration.
   • Metro areas like Lafayette (+4,259), Baton Rouge (+5,437), and Lake Charles (+2,118) led the growth in 2023–2024, signaling improving economic appeal.
4. GDP and Economic Output Trends:
   • Real GDP grew to $256.42 billion in 2024 (up from prior years), though Q1 2025 saw a -1.7% contraction amid a national slowdown affecting 39 states.
   • Forecasts indicate a rebound: 1.4% real GDP growth in 2025 (reaching $243.55 billion in constant 2017 dollars) per state projections, or 2.0% per regional models, with continuing slow growth into Q4 2025.
   • Nominal GDP hit $327.78 billion in 2024, up 4.1% from 2023.
5. Industry Sector Growth:
   • Most major sectors grew as of December 2024, with education and health services (+8,000 jobs), government (+2,400), and construction (+2,700) leading over the past year. Healthcare alone accounts for half of the 10 fastest-growing jobs.
   • The energy sector generates 25% of the state’s economy, 15% of employment, and 19% of earnings in 2025.
6. Major Investments and Projects:
   • Louisiana attracted $61–62 billion in new energy, industrial emissions reduction, and tech projects, expected to create 26,952 jobs.
   • Key examples include Woodside Energy’s $17.5 billion LNG facility in Calcasieu Parish (largest foreign investment in state history), Meta’s AI data center, Hyundai investments, SunGas’s $1.8 billion methanol plant, Cleco’s $1.5 billion carbon capture project, and Niagara Bottling’s $165 million facility.
   • An additional $154.4 billion in industrial projects are under construction or pending, boosting sectors like petrochemicals, LNG exports, and renewables.

Overall Outlook

These indicators collectively suggest Louisiana is in the early stages of economic expansion, fueled by investments in energy and tech, steady job additions, and demographic stabilization. Forecasts from sources like LSU, state agencies, and regional models point to modest but sustained growth through 2025–2026, with employment rising 0.1–1.1% annually and RGDP recovering from the Q1 dip.

While challenges like the Q1 GDP contraction exist, the influx of capital and job momentum indicate a positive trajectory. If you’d like deeper dives into specific sectors or comparisons with neighboring states, let me know.

Which is uninspiring, we’d have to admit.

That said, two things are true. First, there is no question Louisiana is in better economic shape now than we were two years ago and really for the whole eight years when John Bel Edwards was the governor. That was essentially an eight-year holiday from economic productivity that it’ll take us a long time to climb out of, especially in terms of the lost ground to our southern neighbors.

If there’s a silver lining to that, it’s the fact that Texas and Florida and South Carolina are more or less full at this point, so people and companies still trying to escape the New Yorks and Californias of the world might see easier opportunities here than in those places where the incentives might not flow as easily in the next few years as they’ve flowed in the past 10.

That’s prospective, so take it with a grain of salt. And take also with a grain of salt the anecdotal stuff we could pass along.

Namely that in this little corner of the state, essentially south Baton Rouge and St. George, between the traffic and the sudden surge in businesses filling storefronts, it feels like a boom.

Traffic in Baton Rouge is bad in the worst of times, of course, so that’s not scientific. But when Bluebonnet Boulevard is packed at 10 in the morning on a Wednesday and when the parking lots everywhere are jammed, it’s clear there’s a little something extra going on.

Maybe that’s just the economic activity of the city collapsing into one area. Still, it’s notable to feel like there’s a booming economy someplace in Louisiana.

Something else anecdotal is that the usual leftists are screeching about economic development projects. The last time they were loud like this, Bobby Jindal was bringing in a lot of heavy industry and the folks at LABI were beginning to fret about workforce development and how we were going to struggle to fill all the construction and industrial jobs with home-grown talent.

That isn’t a bad problem to have, and maybe we’re going back to having it again.

In Donaldsonville, a former Louisiana capital city nestled roughly halfway between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, two stories are playing out as multinational companies look to construct large industrial facilities in the area.

One story says the area is at the forefront of an economic revival across the state that will make Louisiana into a powerhouse in the South. The other story says the proposals will not bring the community long-term economic prosperity and instead will contribute to health inequalities across the region.

Those diverging narratives, the first told by elected officials and business leaders and the second by some locals and environmental advocacy groups, came into sharp focus Wednesday at the Baton Rouge Industrial Group’s quarterly meeting in Donaldsonville with the city’s Chamber of Commerce. There, hundreds converged for networking, food and speeches from Gov. Jeff Landry and Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois.

The contrasting opinions were visible from the start. As industry leaders from Hyundai and CF Industries entered the building, followed by politicians ranging from state representatives to local school board members, a black truck in the parking lot with an electronic billboard on its sides displayed a message: “$600 million: That’s what Landry’s steel plant will cost taxpayers.”

Here comes more from the screechers…

The proposed investments come with a substantial taxpayer price tag. As the truck’s billboard stated, officials plan to spend $600 million on land purchases, roads, rail upgrades and a new state-owned worker training facility.

The companies will also likely see significant industrial tax exemptions, which allow up to an 80% property tax reduction for companies. The Ascension Parish Council also passed an ordinance creating an economic development district for the area, which allows taxes to be specifically reinvested in economic development projects there.

Before Wednesday’s event, some residents from Donaldsonville and Modeste — a historic community officials plan to displace for the proposed plants — gathered outside to push back against the proposals. Organized by the Donaldsonville-based Rural Roots Louisiana and New Orleans-based Louisiana Bucket Brigade advocacy groups, the residents argued that officials should seek nonindustrial economic investments.

Ah, yes, the Usual Suspects. Wait for it…

A statement from Rural Roots Louisiana Founder Ashley Gaignard, who couldn’t attend the event, pointed to what she said had been decades of neglect from officials.

“Over my 48 years of living in Donaldsonville, I’ve watched the west bank overlooked and underdeveloped despite its historic beauty, strategic location and untapped potential,” the statement said. “Now instead of investing in our community, the parish is entertaining a dangerous pollution build out that would require moving residents off 17,000 acres, displacing an estimated 600 residents.”

We went to Zillow and pulled up the comps in Modeste, and you simply would not believe how dirt-cheap that property is. Not to discount somebody’s property rights or anything, but those people, who live in trailers and shacks from the looks of the satellite images we checked out, are about to have the biggest windfall of their lives for this plant to come in and buy them out.

We’re not talking about the historic part of Donaldsonville here. We’re talking about the part that people are clamoring to get away from. And all of a sudden the Rural Roots Louisiana people are screaming about that land being redeveloped to create hundreds of jobs and to give the folks living there the biggest checks they’ve ever seen.

But instead. they’re demanding “nonindustrial” economic development. As if Louisiana’s economy has ever been driven by white-collar jobs.

OK, then, do they like Meta’s data center in Richland Parish, or the Hut 8 data center in St. Francisville? Those are tech projects rather than heavy industry. Does that satisfy them?

Nope. Eats up too much water, requires too much electric that Entergy will have to burn natural gas to provide. So no. They don’t like the data centers.

And if what Landry and Susan Bourgeois bring in is, say, office jobs for some insurance company that moves a headquarters here (not something we’d expect to see anytime soon, but hey – if the economy does take off, who knows what will show up?), the Ashley Gaignards of the world are then going to scream that it’s more people in their cars clogging up the roads and killing the planet.

The point is that when these guys are unhappy, it means Louisiana must be coming alive. They were awfully quiet over the previous eight years, you know.

So maybe things are about to take off around here. With all of the griping, a lot of it reasonable, about Landry, a good economic kick in the pants is certainly what he could use.

And if the people bitching about him are Rural Roots Louisiana and the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, that’s exactly where he wants to be.