NEW ORLEANS – Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO, Inc.) and Bank of America released the 2025 Greater New Orleans Jobs Report, offering a comprehensive analysis of the region’s workforce landscape. Now in its seventh year, the report identifies high-demand occupations, pinpoints key areas of industry growth, and serves as a foundational resource for aligning education, training and economic development efforts across Southeast Louisiana.
“The labor market in Greater New Orleans is starting a new chapter where the energy industry is booming, the Louisiana International Terminal is on the verge of reshaping local logistics, and healthcare remains the backbone of the regional workforce,” said Michael Hecht, president and CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc. “What this report makes clear is that the job opportunity is real and can be achieved by aligning education and training pathways to meet it. The workers, the demand, and the investment are all on deck, this data helps ensure they align with each other.”
Developed in partnership with Bank of America, the report is created by GNO, Inc. and equips stakeholders — including educators, policymakers, training providers and business leaders — with actionable data to inform workforce development and talent alignment. This year’s edition introduces updated wage thresholds, expanded criteria for essential occupations, and a deeper analysis of in-demand skills shaping the regional workforce. All of these data points are accessible through an interactive digital platform at gnoinc.org/jobsreport.
“Bank of America is proud to help put the right tools in the hands of the people working to expand economic opportunity across the region,” said Jonathan Matessino, New Orleans/Baton Rouge president, Bank of America. “This year’s Jobs Report gives educators, employers, and policymakers a sharper, more complete picture of where real workforce demand exists, so they can deploy resources where they’ll have the greatest impact. The differentiator is the report points not just to where the growth numbers lead, but where the region’s economic foundation depends on a strong talent pipeline.”
The 2025 report also introduces several methodological updates that make it a more complete picture of the regional labor market. Wage thresholds have been updated using MIT’s 2025 Living Wage for Greater New Orleans, setting the Top Job floor at $24.60 per hour and On-Ramp Jobs between $18.45 and $24.60 per hour.
The report also expands its criteria to include select declining occupations — those with at least 500 current jobs and no more than a 25% decline over the past decade — recognizing that many large, foundational roles in logistics, healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and business operations remain critical to the regional economy despite modest long-term contraction.
Together, these updates ensure that workforce training providers, employers, and policymakers have a more accurate and actionable view of real regional demand.
Key Insights from the 2025 Report Include:
- A stabilizing regional labor market: The Greater New Orleans unemployment rate held steady at 4.4% in 2025, unchanged from the prior year and consistent with pre-pandemic levels, even as national unemployment ticked up to 4.5%; Average weekly wages reached $1,430, a gain of roughly 41% since 2019, reflecting sustained income growth across the region
- Healthcare and Digital Media as anchor growth industries: Healthcare remains the region’s largest employer with more than 86,000 jobs and 15% growth over the past decade; Digital Media has emerged as one of the fastest-growing clusters, adding more than 1,300 jobs (+25%) since 2015, driven by expansion in software development, data infrastructure, and digital services
- Energy: high-wage and in transition: Despite structural employment changes, Energy continues to offer the highest wages of any cluster at nearly $199,000 in average annual earnings, and is evolving toward an “all-of-the-above” strategy encompassing LNG, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, and renewables
- The Louisiana International Terminal as a growth catalyst: The LIT represents a generational investment that will expand Trade & Logistics capacity, strengthen supply chains, and create new opportunities across Advanced Manufacturing and related sectors, benefits not yet fully reflected in current employment data
- A dual workforce challenge: The region must continue to support pathways into high-volume, foundational roles in healthcare, education, and business operations, while developing a high-skill, specialized workforce for the jobs of the future
- The report highlights both Top Jobs (occupations with a median hourly wage of at least $24.60 (based on MIT’s 2025 Living Wage for Greater New Orleans), strong demand, and either positive growth or sustained large-scale employment) and On-Ramp Jobs, which provide accessible entry points into career pathways that lead to long-term economic mobility.
The interactive dashboard, available at gnoinc.org/jobsreport, allows users to explore job data filtered by industry, wage, education level, and more.
Over the next year, GNO, Inc. and its partners will use this data to inform public policy, business development, educational programming, and philanthropic investment, helping to build a more resilient, equitable, and opportunity-rich region.