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Texas employment hit a record high for the 12th straight month

In this Friday, May 19, 2017, file photo, job seekers walk into the Opportunity Fair and Forum employment event in Dallas. On Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, the the Texas Workforce Commission announced the state added nearly 50,000 nonfarm jobs.
LM Otero
/
AP
In this Friday, May 19, 2017, file photo, job seekers walk into the Opportunity Fair and Forum employment event in Dallas. On Friday, Nov. 18, 2022, the the Texas Workforce Commission announced the state added nearly 50,000 nonfarm jobs.

Total statewide employment set a record high in Texas for a 12th consecutive month in October, the Texas Workforce Commission reported Friday.

Total Texas employment in October increased by 694,200 jobs in the past year, while the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained steady at 4%, the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, commission officials told reporters on a video conference call Friday.

"Even though it seems that expansion has cooled off a bit, we're still adding jobs," said TWC Labor Market Information Director Mariana Vega. "And we're adding jobs at an, I would say, above-average rate."

Regionally, unemployment in the Dallas-Fort Worth area again beat the statewide rate without seasonal adjustment, holding at 3.4% for a second straight month. The Amarillo and Austin metro areas once again touted the lowest unemployment — both at 2.8%. The rate remained highest in the areas of McAllen at 6.1% and Beaumont-Port Arthur at 5.9%.

The state gained nearly 50,000 non-farm jobs last month, with professional and business services such as accounting, advertising and consulting gaining the most with 18,700 new hires. Leisure and hospitality followed with an additional 11,600 jobs.

Such active labor market participation and stable unemployment were good signs for the state's economy, said TWC Chairman Bryan Daniel.

"Growth is is very much distributed geographically across the state," he said. "We're seeing that the growth is also distributed across the different industries of the state. All of these things, in my opinion, mark a very strong labor market report."

Copyright 2022 KERA. To see more, visit KERA.

Bekah Morr is KERA's Morning Edition producer. She came to KERA from NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., where she worked as a news assistant at Weekend All Things Considered. While there, she produced stories and segments for a national audience, covering everything from rising suicide rates among police officers, to abuse allegations against Nike coaches and everything in between. Before that, she interned for a year on Think with Krys Boyd, helping to research, write and produce the daily talk-show. A graduate of the University of Texas at Arlington, Bekah spent her formative journalism years working at the student news organization The Shorthorn. As editor in chief, she helped create the publication’s first, full-color magazine.
Joseph Leahy anchors morning newscasts for NPR's statewide public radio collaborative, The Texas Newsroom. He began his career in broadcast journalism as a reporter for St. Louis Public Radio in 2011. The following year, he helped launch Delaware's first NPR station, WDDE, as an afternoon newscaster and host. Leahy returned to St. Louis in 2013 to anchor local newscasts during All Things Considered and produce news on local and regional issues. In 2016, he took on a similar role as the local Morning Edition newscaster at KUT in Austin, before moving over to the Texas Newsroom.