Note: This segment aired on myarklamiss.com on Feb. 7, 2020. 

Students from the College of Business at Louisiana Tech have spent the last quarter putting together a report of Louisiana’s regional economic analysis. It’s called the REAL Report.

“We actually dig into the hard fact numbers and dig in with data and we work with the numbers of this is what it really looks like and this is wht we can really lead to,” Ddon Nguyen, senior economics major, said.

It provides community leaders and businesses with information about the strengths and weaknesses of the economy. Matt Flynn, senior economics major, says Louisiana’s unemployment rates and growth in payrolls are trending in a great direction.

“As anyone who has lived here for a long time knows, Hurricane Katrina hit our state very hard, Flynn said. “We have been on a difficult road to recovery from that, but I think that policy makers in the state have a great opportunity right now to focus on long term labor increases and we can really see some positive return in the state.”

The REAL Report shows opportunities in multiple industries in Louisiana, especially computer services. Levi Holder, senior economics major, says Louisiana Tech has played a part in those numbers.

“We are one of the only universities in the nation that offers a cyber engineering degree,” Holder said. “So it that it’s drawn a lot of computer related jobs and technology related jobs to North Louisiana along I-20 Corredor specifically in Bossier and now starting to see that happen here in Ruston”

Students say this project has been an opportunity to prepare for what is to come as they continue to pursue an education in business.

This has been a great opportunity for me to get my hands dirty with like real life data,” Flynn said. “and show programs that here at Louisiana Tech our undergraduate students are capable of doing the hard data analytics I’m producing that into something that’s meaningful for people.”

The students are now working on the second issue of the real report. It will focus on the economic impact of the addition of Tech Pointe 2 on LA Tech’s campus.The reports can be found on the College of Business website at business.latech.edu/realreport.