The national job market is hot and is expected to just keep getting hotter. National figures recently released indicate an additional 235,000 people have been added to payrolls in February.
In Houston we only have new data from January, which traditionally is a down month because of the adjustment for holiday retail sales workers. Parker Harvey, an economist with Workforce Solutions, says we’re down 43,900 jobs, well in keeping with expected norms, but did find a bright spot.
“We added a few hundred jobs in our mining and logging sector in manufacturing, only about 900 to 600. Those are two sectors related to oil and gas so that was pretty positive to see,” he tells KTRH News.
Harvey says we can expect to see increases soon, especially in sectors most impacted by the lingering impact of Hurricane Harvey. “Construction is obviously the big one to watch. We’re already seeing some growth there. Obviously construction is going to be related to the recovery effort. Things like retail as well. Obviously people are going to have to replace household items and goods.”
Nationally, leisure and hospitality led the gains, adding another 50,000 workers. Professional and business services contributed another 46,000 to the increase.