Texas Recovers Jobs after Shutdowns
Texas now has 28,200 more jobs than the February 2020 employment level, according to the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. Texas has gained jobs in 18 of the last 19 months, adding 75,100 jobs in November 2021. This was a 0.6 percent increase over October 2021, indicating job creation may be picking up steam, and was substantially higher than the United States growth rate of 0.1 percent.
The unemployment rate in Texas decreased 0.2 months from October to 5.2 percent in November. The pre-shutdown unemployment rate was 3.7 percent. The labor force is now higher than before the shutdowns with 49,662 new workers added to the economy from October 2021 to November 2021. Texas had a record level of 928,000 job openings in July 2021, with 907,000 openings in October. For the fourth straight month, job openings were higher than the number of unemployed. Of Texas' four major MSAs, Austin-Round Rock had the highest annual growth rate from November 2020 to November 2021, likely benefiting from the high-tech sector, which could adapt better than many sectors to shutdowns.