By Will Hall, Baptist Message staff writer LAFAYETTE, LA. (LBM) -- The Acadiana Advocate has published information from a report compiled by Gary Wagner, an economist with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, showing sharp job losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his report, Wager stated, “Louisiana lost more than 218,000 payroll jobs between the first and second quarters of 2020. This represents an 11% reduction and is the largest quarterly loss in jobs for periods in which we have economic data. To put this figure into perspective, the state lost just over 6% of its jobs in 2005 because of Hurricane Katrina.” Wagner further noted that “More than 800,000 individuals have applied for initial unemployment claims since March 14, 2020 in excess of the state’s historical average.” For context, he shared that for the last 34 years, “the state averages around 3400 new unemployment claims per week in August.” But, even with the dire news regarding lost jobs and surging jobless claims, Wagner is optimistic about the economy in the near term, according to the Advocate. The state economy will pick up, although Wagner predicts it will be 7 percent smaller than in 2019, the Advocate reported, noting that increased … [Read more...]