Business

Charlotte-based Nucor Corp. has announced one of the largest industrial development wins in Louisiana history. Nucor President John Ferriola joined Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in making the announcement. The iron and steel project could create as many as 1250 jobs averaging $75,000 annually plus benefits. The capital investment could be as high as $3.4 billion. The recruitment of Nucor has taken several years. Nucor had previously announced that if it built in the United States, it would be in Louisiana. Until today, Louisiana was competing against a site in Brazil. Full story here.

A new report indicates that half of Louisiana's metropolitan areas escaped the recession as of December 2009. The Baton Rouge Business Report quotes a Moody's Economy.com report that shows Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles and New Orleans all moved out of the recession at that time. Alexandria, Houma-Thibodaux, Monroe and Shreveport-Bossier all remained in the recession. Louisiana's performance mirrors the nation, where about 52% of the metro areas remained in the recession in December. The full story and a link to the full map are here. 

The Moody's Economy.com site features a map that shows Louisiana as a whole in recovery. Compared to the county-by-county map of the recession that we posted a couple of months back, this shows the economy doing an exact geographic reversal. That is, the recession came to us from the coasts, but it is receding from the center out.

Since the announcement of the closing of International Paper's Pineville plant, a group of the region's economic developers has been meeting at the Central Louisiana Chamber of Commerce. These meetings are intended to help chart the magnitude and nature of the economic disruption, and to plan and execute appropriate responses.

My former colleagues at Southern Growth Policies Board noted in their Southern Compass newsletter today, the release of a new Kauffman Foundation report on job creation and young businesses.