New Orleans has created jobs by turning to technology and by helping to keep its core industries on track

By NANCY DUNNE

New Orleans, an exotic party town with its own distinctive food, music and holiday, has always been singular among American cities. Culturally it is not quite Southern but a blend of European settlers, African slaves and their Creole offspring.

Also uniquely, while other communities are worried about jobs New Orleans is looking feverishly for skilled workers. Employers have about 15,000 job openings in shipyards, manufacturing, healthcare and construction; the business community is worried about filling the 30,000 new jobs it expects to add in the next 10 years.

The need is not limited to "old economy jobs". Lucy Bosworth, a principal at Ascent Consulting, an executive and professional recruiting company specialising in information technology, accounting and finance, says her business has risen 30 per cent in each of the last three years. In the past recruitment orders have mostly been for temporary contractors but, in recent weeks, there has been a burst of demand for permanent appointments.

"I have 25 open positions right now paying Dollars 35,000-Dollars 90,000," she says. "There is a huge spike in demand for business analysts because a lot of people want to do business process engineering to implement new software and make sure it fits."

While outsourcing is dealing blows to other regions, New Orleans gained 3,000-4,000 new jobs last year, according to preliminary government data. Yet the official unemployment rate is above 5 per cent while thousands more are underemployed.

With its natural geographical advantages at the base of the Mississippi, New Orleans has not had to mount intensive economic development efforts. Jobs are readily available in a region that operates four ports, produces a third of US domestic oil and gas supply, houses one of the largest concentrations of petrochemical plants in the world, processes 28 per cent of the nation's plastics and employs a large percentage of federal workers. Greater New Orleans also has nine four-year colleges, including Tulane, Loyola, Louisiana State University and University of New Orleans, and two community colleges.

Mardi Gras' pre-Lent madness has been dominating the "Big Easy" for the past two weeks. But away from the spotlight, the business community and the city government have been tackling new challenges just as unique to the region as its character.

Hampered by poor political leadership, complacency, street crime and corruption, New Orleans mostly snoozed through the technology bubble of 1990s. It also avoided the traumas of the bust. "We had a tech burp in the mid-1990s," says Tommy Kurtz of Greater New Orleans Inc, a private-public economic development partnership. "Before that, economic development was focused on casinos, gambling and hospitality. Then things started turning around."

That was when the state funnelled significant investment in "new economy" education programmes and job training while the private sector set about forming important alliances with government and the universities. At least a dozen incubators and an activist entrepreneurial network are nurturing new business. Large corporations, federal agencies and military-related federal facilities are contributing to a diversified IT economy.

The University of New Orleans has established a research and development park, which is attracting software developers, and, with Northrop Grumman, has founded the Maritime Center of Excellence. New Orleans has long led the rest of the Deep South in the growth of biotechnology and biomedicine. There are now eight business and technology parks, along with a Louisiana Gene Therapy Consortium, a cancer research centre and centre for environment-related bioscience research.

City officials and businessmen are scornful of other cities, spending millions of dollars to attract a few thousand jobs, which may or may not materialise or remain in town. "We have tried to concentrate on those things that have always been good to Louisiana - oil and gas, the ports - and go from there to those things that will be part of the future," says Mark Drennan, president and chief executive of Greater New Orleans Inc.

But the things that have always been good are facing new threats. "The good times have rolled," says Mr Kurtz. With new drilling now banned in many parts of the Gulf, natural gas prices are high and gas shortages are looming. This has discouraged plant production and even driven some processing offshore. The companies that stay are facing worker shortages, as long-time employees near retirement age.

Although four liquid natural gas plants are under construction, the energy they produce may provide only "short-term salvation" for the chemical and plastics industries, says Mr Kurtz. "I can see plants shut down and moved overseas if there is not enough (cheap gas)," says Mr Kurtz.

However, technology can provide solutions. For example, a pilot programme is investigating production of specialty chemicals drawn from the waste streams of commodity chemicals. The community colleges are now training chemical workers and there are plans to develop a curriculum for oil and gas workers. "We may have to recruit workers in other states," says Mr Kurtz. "That is a hot political issue but if you can't find skilled workers it puts your companies at a competitive disadvantage."

The greatest opportunity for technology, however, may be in the public sector. Mayor C. Ray Nagin, a businessman and political novice, is upgrading old computer systems and installing new technology in an attempt to eradicate the corruption that has long blighted the business climate.

He has attracted a bright, energetic, techno-savvy group of assistants to implement his plans. New technology, donated by computer and software giants, has already saved the city millions. The mayor has "re-engineered" the budget, renegotiated overpriced contracts and implemented a new financial reporting system. Police reports, criminal records and ticketing are managed electronically. The city is installing high-resolution surveillance cameras on the streets to curb the street crime that scares off many tourists.

"Technology can address all the problems previous administrations suffered from," says Greg Meffert, the city's chief information officer. "It doesn't care who you know. It can't be bribed. It doesn't care what colour you are. It just does what you ask it to do. We're going to see lots more outside investment. We're going to make it amazing to do business here."

Matt Konigsmark

Director of Marketing,

City of New Orleans

O:  504-565-8137

M: 504-329-0634

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