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."
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