San Antonio's overall job market is strong on this Labor Day, according to the CEO of Workforce Solutions Alamo, Adrian Lopez
He said around 1.3 million people were gainfully employed in the region in July, while another 50,000 were actively looking for work.
Lopez placed the July unemployment rate for the eight-county, San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan statistical area at 4%.
Lopez said most major industries are showing monthly gains, including the pandemic-battered leisure and hospitality industry, which is the area's biggest employer.
"San Antonio hotels collectively brought in about $1.2 billion in lodging in the final three months of 2021. That was an improvement over 2020, but about still 10% behind the last quarter of 2019, so they are moving in the right direction, but we still have some ways to catch up to where we were in 2019," Lopez said.
Most major local industries are adding workers, including leisure and hospitality. The others hiring include construction, trade, transportation, and utilities, manufacturing, education and health services, mining and logging, and the information industry.
Job losses were reported in financial activity, professional and business services, and government. Lopez said Workforce Solutions Alamo offers a fast track into the job market for the unemployed.
"We definitely have resources to train people. Send them back to school or get them trained up. A lot of times these are sometimes weeks of training. Sometimes people think I got to go to school for years. The reality is different for many of the sectors we support," he said.
Another healthy sign for the local job market is continued wage growth. As of June 2, the Area Median Income for the San Antonio region rose to $83,500 for a family of four, up from $74,100.
Wages have grown every year since 2016 and jumped 6.3% in 2019, and even more at 13% this year.
The average wage in San Antonio is $57,637. The statewide average is $62,254.
