AUSTIN – Texas added 50,000 nonfarm jobs in December, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. The state has added 694,400 jobs since December 2020.
With the jobs added last month, Texas hit a record-high employment level at nearly 13.06 million jobs, surpassing February 2020’s pre-pandemic record.
The state’s job market increased 0.4 percent over the month, surpassing the Texas Real Estate Research Center’s forecasted growth rate of 0.2 percent. Texas’ labor market is recovering faster than the nation’s job market, which grew 0.1 percent over the month.
Texas’ seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in December was 5 percent, down 0.2 percentage points from November and higher than the national unemployment rate of 3.9 percent.
Amarillo and Austin-Round Rock had the lowest nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the state at 2.9 percent. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission had the highest at 7.8 percent.
All employment sectors had seasonally adjusted job gains since December 2020. Mining and logging saw the largest annual growth at 18.5 percent, followed by leisure and hospitality (10.9 percent) and professional and business services (9.6 percent)
The Texas Real Estate Research Center has a wealth of economic information online for free.