Ken Stickney

kstickney@theadvertiser.com

The Lafayette region faces a second, consecutive year of declining employment, the result of languishing low oil and gas prices that have created industry layoffs.

But recovery is on the way, perhaps in 2017.

That’s part of Louisiana’s economic outlook for 2016 and 2017, economist Loren C. Scott told a breakfast gathering Thursday. Scott’s presentation to the ABiz Entrée to Business Breakfast was largely based on a study prepared by Scott, professor emeritus in economics from LSU, and LSU economics professor James A. Richardson.

In projecting short-term setbacks for Lafayette, Scott said by no means would the area suffer the deep and sustained job setbacks it incurred in the 1980s. Lafayette lost some 19.4 percent of its jobs in the worst of that down period, when the energy industry lost thousands of jobs in exploration and production.

Two things improved the area’s job outlook since then, he said: the energy industry pared down its employee base — “You tightened your belts permanently,” he said — and the economy diversified.

Scott pointed to stability among major local employers outside oil and gas like Acadian Cos., Stuller and Schumaker and newly arrived or arriving employers, many in the high-tech area.

Scott said the state’s mining jobs, typically in oil and gas, number about 47,900 today, about 600 more than in 1973. In the short term, he said, the Lafayette area may experience about 2,600 job losses in 2016, but will recover some 2,000 in 2017.

“You’ve been through this before,” Scott said of Lafayette. “It’s not a disaster for Lafayette.”

Scott said oil prices may climb to $55 next year, $60 in 2017, but he said there is “a very wide band of price ranges that can extend from a low of $30 to a high of $90.”

Overall, Scott said, Louisiana may gain some 15,400 jobs in 2016, an increase of eight-tenths of a percent, and an additional 19,600 jobs the following year. Much of the growth will center on the Lake Charles area, where construction jobs on new investments, many involving liquefied natural gas projects, will push up jobs by 7,400 in 2016, a 7.1 percent increase.

The Baton Rouge area, too, will see robust job growth: 8,900 jobs in 2016, 6,200 jobs in 2017.

“It’s hard not to be optimistic” in Lake Charles, he said.

Here’s the outlook for other metropolitan statistical areas in the state: