Louisiana Job Connection attracts 13,000 job seekers

BATON ROUGE — State official say more than 13,000 people posted their job availability on the free Louisiana Job Connection website over its first seven weeks of operation.

More than 90 percent of those prospective employees are Louisiana residents.

Stephen Moret, the state’s secretary for economic development, tells The Advocate more than 950 Louisiana employers have posted job openings with the LJC. The agency’s website matches employer-specified job openings to the strengths, experience and job requirements specified by potential employees.

Most of the early matches have occurred in the past three weeks, Moret said. Depending on the demand for certain skills, some potential employees may have many more matches than others.

“Some people may have 10 or 20 or 30 matches,” Moret explained. “Others may have only two or three.”

The LJC website was designed to show both job seekers and employers the strength of their matches, Moret said. It does not show how many job openings have been filled.

Moret added, though, that feedback of that sort will be sought in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, Louisiana residents seeking employment over the LJC website — www.louisianajobconnection.com — totaled 11,795 between the site’s Aug. 18 opening and Wednesday morning, said officials of the Louisiana Department of Economic Development.

Another 1,125 people from other states placed their lists of experiences, training and education with LJC over the same span.

At 208 job applications, Texas residents were a distant second to Louisiana residents seeking jobs through LJC.

Residents of other states seeking employment in Louisiana included Mississippi, 127; Florida, 76; California, 66; and Alabama, 54.

Another 155 people in foreign countries visited the LJC website to seek employment in Louisiana.

The largest numbers of those applications came from India, 34; Pakistan, 13; and the Philippines, 12. No other foreign nation had more than 10 applicants for work in Louisiana.