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# Baton Rouge is king
- URL: https://www.redeyebr.com/baton-rouge-is-king/
- Published: 2026-07-15T02:40:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-15T02:40:21.000Z
- Description: Construction is building the state's fastest-growing job market.
- Author: JR Ball

Louisiana hit an all-time high of **2.01 million nonfarm jobs** in May, and the fine print says who's carrying it: **Baton Rouge added more jobs than any other Louisiana metro** over the past year, while New Orleans and Shreveport shrank.

**Why it matters:** Baton Rouge isn't riding the state's wave right now—it's making it.

- The metro added **7,900 jobs** over the year, up 1.8%, a full point ahead of Louisiana's overall 0.8% growth rate, according to a new [report](https://betterla.org/research/second-quarter-2026-economic-development-report/?ref=redeyebr.com) from Leaders for a Better Louisiana.

**Driving the growth:** The metro's job engine right now is industrial construction, and it's not particularly diversified, reports The Partnership's second-quarter [State of the Regional Economy](https://brbythenumbers.substack.com/p/the-partnerships-state-of-the-regional?ref=redeyebr.com).

- Three mega projects are hiring at once: Hyundai's steel mill, CF Industries' ammonia plant in Ascension and Linde's air separation unit, alongside the I-10 widening.
- Construction alone added 6,500 jobs over the year, nearly twice as many as leisure, health care and professional services combined.
- That's a construction spike, as *RedEye* reported [in June](https://www.redeyebr.com/capital-region-jobs-hit-record-high/), not evidence of a diversified economy—a distinction that still holds.
- Note of caution: Air Products [canceled](https://www.airproducts.com/company/news-center/2026/06/0630-air-products-not-proceeding-louisiana-3rd-q-finalizing-with-yara-neom-renewable-ammonia-sa?ref=redeyebr.com) its $4.5 billion Louisiana Clean Energy Complex in Ascension Parish in late June, citing financial returns that fell short of its own targets—a decision cheered by Lake Maurepas-area residents who'd fought the project's carbon capture plans for years.

**The gap:** Only two other metros are even in the conversation, and both got there riding a single project Baton Rouge doesn't have.

- Monroe (+1.3%) relied on Meta's data center build. Lake Charles (+1.2%) leaned on LNG construction.
- New Orleans lost jobs (-0.5%). Shreveport did too (-0.6%). Baton Rouge is pushing the state average up, while its two biggest peers are pulling it down.

**The catch:** Business formation tells a messier story.

- East Baton Rouge Parish logged 8,971 new [business applications](https://www.census.gov/econ/bfs/data/county.html?ref=redeyebr.com) in 2025, up 25% from 2019, Census Bureau figures show—real growth, but short of the parish's 2021 peak of nearly 13,000.
- Ascension, Lafayette and Calcasieu parishes all grew faster in percentage terms over that stretch. Baton Rouge still files more new-business paperwork than anywhere else in the state.

**State of the state:** Zoom out and the numbers back up the local story.

- **Louisiana's economy grew 2.7% over the year**, 4th-fastest in the South—behind North Carolina, Texas and South Carolina—and right in line with U.S. growth.
- The state's own **jobs number tied for 6th-fastest nationally** in May and ranked 4th in the South, behind North Carolina, West Virginia and South Carolina.
- The state's tax code jumped six spots on the Tax Foundation's competitiveness index, the biggest climb in the South, after 2024's flat-rate overhaul and the death of the corporate franchise tax.
- Home insurance is still the drag: $5,986 a year on average, second-highest in the South and nearly 2.4 times the national number.

**The bottom line:** Baton Rouge is doing the heavy lifting on jobs. Whether it can do the same for new business determines whether this is a boom or a plateau.