Texas Showing Signs Of Economic Recovery

COLLEGE STATION – Texas’ economy is slowly showing signs of recovery from the impact of the 2015 oil price collapse.

According to the Real Estate Center’s latest Monthly Review of the Texas Economy, the state gained 187,500 nonagricultural jobs from April 2015 to April 2016, an annual growth rate of 1.6 percent, lower than the nation’s growth rate of 1.9 percent.

The nongovernment sector added 154,000 jobs, an annual growth rate of 1.6 percent compared with 2.2 percent for the nation’s private sector.

April was the fourth month the state’s economy posted an annual employment growth rate exceeding the annual growth rate in December 2015, indicating that the Texas economy has passed the worst of the downturn.

Texas’ seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in April was 4.4, the same rate as in April 2015. The nation’s rate decreased from 5.4 to 5 percent.

All Texas industries except mining and logging, manufacturing, and information industry had more jobs in April 2016 than in April 2015. Leisure and hospitality ranked first in job creation followed by education and health services, trade, other services, construction, and financial activities.

All Texas metro areas except Longview, Midland, and Odessa had more jobs last month than a year ago. Dallas-Plano-Irving ranked first in job creation followed by Austin-Round Rock, College Station-Bryan, Lubbock, and Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood.

The state’s actual unemployment rate was 4.2 percent. Amarillo had the lowest unemployment rate, followed by Austin-Round Rock, Lubbock, College Station-Bryan, Dallas-Plano-Irving, and San Antonio-New Braunfels.

This article was originally published by Real Estate Center Online News.