Unemployment rate for labor force rises in parish

BATON ROUGE – In the past year the unemployment rate for the civilian labor force in Acadia Parish rose from 3.7 percent in January 2007 to 4.4 percent in January 2008.

While that may be the bad news, the good news it that Acadia parish still has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state.

Lasalle parish has the lowest rate at 3.8 percent, followed by Iberia which has 4.0 percent. Acadia and Vermilion are next with both parishes having a 4.4 percent unemployment rank.

The number of employed people in Acadia parish stood at 24,419 with only 1,111 people unemployed.

Statewide the unemployment rate stood at 4.0 percent, which was slightly up from last years 3.8 percent. The January 2008 unemployment rate for the United States was 4.9 percent, a decrease from the figure from one month ago which was 5.0 percent.