Though Louisiana lags peer states in population growth — due in part to a perceived lack of available jobs — the state actually has a workforce shortage, with roughly 24,000 more job openings than job seekers, according to data released late last year.
Bridging that gap will be a key focus of the state’s business community in the upcoming legislative session, which gets underway Monday.
Business and industry groups are pushing bills that would direct more money to workforce training, improve and streamline training programs, and make it easier for companies in need of workers to connect with those looking for jobs.
“Over the past two years, we’ve seen broad-based economic development progress,” said Adam Knapp, CEO of Better Louisiana, a statewide group of business leaders. “But there are constraints across the workforce system that we need to address.”
Adam Knapp
As in the past, the state’s business lobby is backing tort reform bills that would cap damages in civil lawsuits and lower insurance payouts to uninsured motorists injured in accidents.
They’ll also be playing defense on the issue of carbon sequestration, a key element of the “all-of-the-above-energy” policy promoted by Gov. Jeff Landry and his predecessor, former Gov. John Bel Edwards.
“There have been a ton of bills filed that are anti-carbon capture and sequestration,” said Jim Patterson, executive vice president of the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry. “There is a lot of fear, a lot of that is ill-informed. We need to make sure companies know that they can come here and operate.”
Consolidating money, authority
The session comes more than two years into Landry’s term. During that time, his pro-business administration has simplified the state’s tax code to make it more friendly to companies, rolled back regulations opposed by big industry, created new incentives to attract data centers and other manufacturers, and reorganized the state’s economic development agency.
The governor and Louisiana Economic Development officials say those changes have paid off in billions of dollars in new projects planned or under construction, including Meta and Amazon artificial intelligence data centers in north Louisiana, a Hyundai steel mill in Ascension Parish and new liquified natural gas facilities along the Gulf Coast.
Governor Jeff Landry addresses the Louisiana Legislature on opening day of legislative session, Monday, April 14, 2025, at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, La.
Those big-ticket industrial projects have created additional demand for new construction workers, who were already in short supply. The health care, hospitality and manufacturing sectors also are stretched thin, according to data from the Greater Baton Rouge Industry Alliance, which projects that Louisiana will need about 70,000 more skilled tradespeople over the next five years.
Among the measures business groups are pushing is a bill by Rep. John Wyble, R-Franklinton, that would consolidate power and millions of federal workforce training dollars under Louisiana Works, the former Louisiana Workforce Commission, which was restructured during the 2025 legislative session.
Those federal dollars, which totaled $115 million this year, currently flow to 15 different regional councils charged with devising and overseeing workforce training in their respective geographic areas. Wyble’s bill would effectively funnel the money and control to the state, which advocates say would allow for greater coordination, oversight and efficiency.
“A lot of times, the funding is just not as coordinated as it could be,” Patterson said. “All these regional boards are operating in their own little theater, and there’s no ability to make sure we have all been rowing in the same direction.”
Jim Patterson
A related bill by Rep. Stephanie Berault, R-Slidell, would create the funding mechanism for the new workforce training initiative, establishing the Bayou Growth Opportunity Fund, which also would be administered by Louisiana Works.
“It’s great we are on the map as a place where folks can come and situate their business,” Patterson said. “But we have a number of folks who are not in the workforce because they lack the skill set. That is something we are trying to address.”
Trying again
As in the past, business lobbyists will be pushing bills that would lower the duration and cost of workers’ compensation claims, which are among the costliest in the U.S. even though the state has some of the lowest incident rates of workplace injuries in the nation. That’s according to statistics from the national Workers Compensation Research Institute, a nonprofit research organization.
A bill by Rep. Gabe Firment, R-Pollock, would impose new rules on workers’ compensation claims. Another measure by Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Shreveport, would abolish the Workers Compensation Advisory Council, as part of a broader restructuring of the system.
Governor Jeff Landry addresses the Louisiana Legislature on opening day of legislative session, Monday, April 14, 2025, at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, La.
Business groups will also try again to tackle tort reform, an area where they have had only limited success because of the state’s powerful trial bar. This session, a bill by Sen. Jay Morris, R-Monroe, would make it harder to get money for mental anguish or emotional distress absent physical injury, requiring the plaintiff to prove “outrageous conduct” by a defendant.
In auto insurance, a bill by Rep. Dennis Bamburg, another Monroe Republican, would extend the law, which denies recovery for the first $100,000 of bodily injury or property damage for an uninsured motorist, to those whose insurance coverage has lapsed for more than 30 days.
Playing defense
New on the agenda for this session are a series of bills that would ensure carbon capture and sequestration is allowed to go forward. Environmental groups and residents of areas near proposed injection wells are increasingly opposed to the projects, which have already received federal permits and represent billions in new investment for the state.
Several bills would ban or restrict new carbon wells. LABI and groups that lobby for the petrochemical industry are supporting measures that prevent such limits.
“The Legislature needs to say there is no reason for these projects not to go forward,” Patterson said. “There are jobs and opportunities and everyone needs to calm down and relax.”
