According to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) provisional estimates, in July 2003 the seasonally adjusted civilian labor force in Louisiana numbered 2,041,200, with approximately 150,700 workers unemployed, yielding an unemployment rate of 7.4%, compared to the national average of 6.2% for the same period. Since the beginning of the BLS data series in 1978, the highest unemployment rate recorded was 13.6% in September 1986. The historical low was 4.7% in December 1999. It is estimated that in 2001, 6.8% of the labor force was employed in construction; 8.6% in manufacturing; 6.1% in transportation, communications, and public utilities; 20.2% in trade; 4.9% in finance, insurance, and real estate; 24.9% in services; 16.9% in government; and 1.8% in agriculture.
During the antebellum period, Louisiana had both the largest slave market in the US—New Orleans—and the largest slave revolt in the nation's history, in St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes in January 1811. New Orleans also had a relatively large free black population, and many of the slaves in the city were skilled workers, some of whom were able to earn their freedom by outside employment. Major efforts to organize Louisiana workers began after the Civil War. There were strikes in the cane fields in the early 1880s, and in the mid-1880s, the Knights of Labor began to organize the cane workers. The strike they called in 1886 was ended by hired strikebreakers, who killed at least 30 blacks. Back in New Orleans, the Knights of Labor led a general strike in 1892. The Brotherhood of Timber Workers began organizing in 1910 but had little to show for their efforts except the scars of violent conflict with the lumber-mill owners.
A right-to-work law was passed in 1976, partly as a result of violent conflict between an AFL-CIO building trades union and an independent union over whose workers would build a petrochemical plant near Lake Charles. In 1979, a police strike began in New Orleans on the eve of Mardi Gras, causing the cancellation of most of the parades, but it collapsed the following month.
The US Department of Labor reported that in 2002, 134,000 of Louisiana's 1,649,000 employed wage and salary workers were members of unions. This represented 8.1% of those so employed, up from 7.6% in 2001 but down from 10% in 1998. The national average is 13.2%. In all, 170,000 workers (10.3%) were represented by unions. In addition to union members, this category includes workers who report no union affiliation but whose jobs are covered by a union contract. Louisiana is one of 22 states with a right-to-work law.