A six-month streak of decreasing jobless rates in St. Mary Parish only tells part of the story. The rest of the story is the parish workforce has lost nearly 600 people during that period. Even with the mixed bag that the employment statistics show, the parish is seeing some uptick in economic activity, said Frank Fink, parish economic development director. Fink anticipates south Louisiana’s oil and gas sector will also get a boost when offshore production in the Gulf of Mexico eventually increases due to issues in shale production, especially in west Texas. But uncertainty exists around when that boost ...