Texas Employment Report

Joshua Roberson (Jun 2, 2022)

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• Texas added over 60,000 jobs in April, an almost 0.47 percent increase over March. Over the same period, Texas job growth exceeded the national growth rate by 20 basis points.
• Texas has one of only a handful of state economies that has recovered jobs lost during the pandemic. Its economy has been exceeding the March 2020 pre-pandemic employment level since November 2021.
• In April, the state’s unemployment rate improved to 4.3 percent. While that’s still higher than the national unemployment rate of 3.6 percent, the labor force in Texas has been much more robust throughout the pandemic. Both are still above the pre-pandemic rates of 3.5 percent for each.
• The states’ labor force expanded by over 45,000, the strongest month since January. While Texas’ labor force grew 0.31 percent month over month, the national labor force decreased by 0.22 percent over the same period.
• The most recent job-opening data from March signaled a recovery in job creation after a poor start in January. The March count of job openings was 985,000, the largest count on record. Despite a slowdown in momentum, the mismatch between employment and job-opening growth contributes into the current rapid wage rate growth.
• Childcare, the lingering pandemic, early retirement, and the possibility that people are rethinking their career paths could be affecting the transition back to work.
• In April, the labor force participation rate reached 64.6 percent, finally surpassing the pre-pandemic rate. While Texas’ rate increased 20 basis points over the prior month, the nation rate decreased the same amount.
• The state’s goods-producing sector added 13,600 jobs in April, less than the prior two months. Mining and logging employment led the pack with an additional 6,600 employees, followed by construction (3,600) and manufacturing (3,400).
• The state’s service-providing sector added a little over 49,000 jobs in April, much better than the prior month. Leisure and hospitality had a good month with 13,500 new jobs. Retail jobs, on the other hand, lost a little over 2,000 jobs, breaking the positive momentum that started in January. The latter could be the result of crunched profit margins reported by major retailers including Walmart and Target related to rising inflation.

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Previous reports available:

2022: January, March, April, May
2021: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December