As we head into the holidays, inflation is at a near 30-year high, and we still have an on-going labor shortage. The jobs numbers are trickling up, but what about here in Texas?
"We've actually been quite strong (adding jobs)" said economist Ray Perryman, "The last number we have, Texas gained over 90,000 jobs when the rest of the country gained only 200,000, so that suggests Texas has some strong momentum, we're seeing the oil and gas sector begin to do more hiring, along with the manufacturing sector, construction, and hospitality."
Texas is doing well, so much so that Perryman says we are almost all the way back to where we were before the pandemic as far as people working, which is a striking contrast to many blue states across the U.S. where millions are taking advantage of free handouts, and opting not to work.
"At this point we are only about 1% in terms of total jobs below where were in February of 2020, the month before the pandemic" Perryman told KTRH, "So we have essentially gotten all of our jobs back. We're down about 100,000, so we've made significant progress."
Texans are hard workers, so these numbers really shouldn't be a surprise. What about the outlook for 2022?
"We think there is a fair amount of momentum in the economy" Perryman said, "I think you're going to see a significant surge in the oil and gas sector. We are doing better than the U.S. economy, and that really doesn't surprise me a great deal because it's fairly indicative of how Texas performs compared to the rest of the country over the last 25 years or so."
More good news that we never hear about.