BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — Baton Rouge hit a record-high milestone in jobs for the month of March, according to the economic dashboard.

The Baton Rouge Area Chamber (BRAC) has an economic dashboard to analyze the state’s economy. The dashboard recorded over 422,000 jobs.

“The Capital Region hit an important milestone in March, as the metro area hit an all-time high with over 422,000 jobs, several thousand more than our pre-pandemic high, and 14,000 more than one year prior,” said Andrew Fitzgerald, senior vice president of business intelligence for BRAC.

“Construction, a high-wage industry in the region, led the way with nearly 5,000 job gains year-over-year. One thing to watch out for, though, is a tight labor market that may limit further growth – while there were nearly 32,000 unique job postings in the region throughout March, fewer than 13,000 residents were out of a job and looking for one, meaning there were about 2.5 open jobs for each person looking.” 

The dashboard’s key findings include the highest annual net and percentage job growth, construction jobs increased by 10.3%, the unemployment rate was down 2.9%, the Blues Festival increased hotel revenue, and the total amount of establishments increased since 2018.