January 2011 Review of The Texas Economy – an Excerpt from Texas A&M

Do You Keep on Top of Texas Job Growth Numbers?

Even if you don’t, the folks at the Texas A&M Real Estate Center do, and they publish a monthly report called the “Monthly Review of the Texas Economy” that summarizes the changes in the employment numbers over time.

A quick summary of some Texas job growth numbers that caught our eye, for December 2009 to December 2010:

“The Texas economy gained 231,700 jobs from December 2009 to December 2010, an annual growth rate of 2.3 percent”

Of the 12 industries tracked, the employment growth rate increased the most for Mining and Logging (14.9%, or 30,000 jobs).

The second biggest employment growth was in the Construction industry with an increase of 5.8%, which translates into 32,300 jobs.

In third place, for growth rate, but first place for hard numbers, was Professional and Business Services with 5.3% and 64,900 jobs gained.

Top Employment Shares in Texas (for Industry and Government), according to the same report is Government Sector (17.7%), Trade (15.8%) and Education and Health Services (13.4).

Unemployment in the Austin – Round Rock – San Marcos corridor was 6.8% in December 2010.

We hope this translates into an uptick in the local real estate market in the coming months!