Local economy ignoring national headlines with solid second quarter

Local economy ignoring national headlines with solid second quarter

SHREVEPORT - Douglas White, the director of the LSUS Center for Business and Economic Research that produces quarterly reports on the local economy, got one taste of how the local economy performed this summer.

When flying out on a family vacation to Michigan, White had to park in the grass in the cell phone lot at Shreveport Regional Airport because airport parking was brimming over.

White said the local economy performed well in the second quarter (April-June) with record air travel through Shreveport, an expanding casino market and strong Shreveport tax collection.

"I'll admit, I was a little surprised - it's not what I was expecting," White said. "You read national news that the economy is slowing down and cooling off, but our dashboard data didn't indicate that was the case for the local economy in the second quarter."

Shreveport tax collection jumped 5% year-over-year thanks in part to an expanding casino market.

Live! Casino, which opened in February in Bossier City, underpinned a casino market that raked in 14.7 percent more revenue than in the 2024 second quarter.

White said if people are spending more at casinos, they aren't necessarily concerned with inflation that isn't quite at the Federal Reserve's 2% target.

"The casinos will be fascinating to watch in the third quarter because even though Live! didn't have quite the impact it had in the first quarter, the market still expanded overall in the second quarter," White said. "We'll see if the casino market keeps growing or starts coming back to more historic levels.

"If the economy is slowing overall, I would expect the casino market to be the first to show that."

The only statistic that shows any signs of economic slowing is the unemployment rate, which ticked up to 5% in June for the Shreveport-Bossier City metro area (Caddo, Bossier, DeSoto parishes).

"Compared to what we've had, it's starting to creep up," said White of unemployment rates that had been 4.1-4.4% this year before spiking to 4.7 in May. "People start paying attention at 5%.

"We did reach 5% this time last year before it slowly came down, so we'll be watching to see if we stay above 5% this time. The rates had been historically low, but I also wonder if part of this change is having (Baby Boomers) age out of the workforce and retire. When you have a younger workforce, there's naturally more unemployment because younger workers are more likely to switch jobs, change jobs, and move for jobs."

White added that the Federal Reserve voiced more emphasis on the national unemployment rate (4.2% in July), which possibly signals an interest rate cut at its next meeting in September.

While the nation's economy is showing signs of slowing because of tariff uncertainty and a slowly rising unemployment rate, those trends didn't impact Shreveport-Bossier in the second quarter.