Louisiana adds residents for second year in a row

The population increase comes alongside another workforce marker state leaders are likely to highlight. Louisiana tied for the nation’s largest year-over-year increase in labor force participation, according to Louisiana Works.

The state’s participation rate rose from 57.9% to 58.8%, while the civilian labor force grew by nearly 33,000 people, meaning more residents were either working or actively looking for work.

The gains come as Gov. Jeff Landry, lawmakers and Louisiana Economic Development have made population retention and recruitment a larger part of the state’s economic development strategy. The focus reflects a longstanding concern that Louisiana has struggled not only to attract new residents, but to keep educated workers from leaving.

State economic development officials have been blunt about the challenge. At a Louisiana Economic Development Partnership meeting earlier this year, LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois said Louisiana’s outmigration problem has weighed especially heavily on educated residents.

“The out-migration pattern, we have all heard it. We all know it,” Bourgeois said. “The challenge is asked because it’s outweighed dramatically to our well-educated population and it’s a very dangerous place for a state to be. So a talent retention and attraction campaign has to be a focus of work.”

Population growth has also become part of the state’s broader pitch for job creation and industrial investment.

Landry and LED have promoted large-scale economic development projects, including Meta’s planned artificial intelligence data center in Richland Parish, as evidence Louisiana can compete for major private investment and high-wage jobs.

“Today, Louisiana begins a new chapter,” Landry said when Meta announced the project. “Today, we are delivering new jobs and economic growth on a scale unimaginable before we took office.”

The latest population numbers do not yet amount to a dramatic turnaround, but they give state leaders a useful political and economic development talking point.

Landry, other state officials and lawmakers have bet that job growth, tax changes, business recruitment and a more aggressive talent campaign can turn the modest increase into a more durable trend.

They can also point to recent gains in standardized test scores as evidence that Louisiana is making progress on both economic and education fronts.