The Economy And The 81st Legislature
A story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this morning notes that Texas isn’t yet feeling the full brunt of the economic slowdown seen so many places in America. Of course, you could have fooled us, but the story points out several things of interest:
Texas, meanwhile, keeps purring along. The economy is slowing, to be sure, and corporate layoffs are rising, but the state remains in positive territory by most measures. Even construction employment, down 5.2 percent nationwide in the past year, was up 3.6 percent here.
“We’re feeling an impact from the slowdown, but in economics, everything is relative,” says Cheryl Abbot, regional economist with the Dallas office of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The state is holding up especially well compared with the country at large, and so far, North Texas is looking good, too. The Fort Worth-Arlington area added jobs in every category in the past 12 months, even an additional 200 in manufacturing — one sector that’s generally declined everywhere.
Credit three factors for Texas’ (relatively) good fortune:
The housing market has held up better than in much of the country, and as a result, consumer confidence hasn’t crashed to the same depths. That’s one explanation for why retail sales rose 5.6 percent in Texas in the past year, at least three times higher than nationwide.
The energy industry is booming, riding the wave of sky-high oil and gas prices. That’s producing scores of new jobs in Texas and abroad, and bonus checks for landowners in the Barnett Shale and elsewhere. The Texas rig count reached 931 in June, the highest level since 1984, reports the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Texas exports are on a tear, helped by the falling dollar and strong demand for chemicals. The currency drop has helped boost exports nationwide, but Texas exports grew 7.2 percent in April, compared with a 3.3 percent increase for the nation, the Dallas Fed reports.
These trends spill over to the broader economy, insulating Texas workers from some of the forces now squeezing employers. In professional and business services, for example, the nation barely added any jobs in the past year. But Texas companies added 64,500 employees in that category, a 5 percent increase.
Even the financial services business is doing OK here. Those firms have been in a tailspin, after the meltdown in subprime loans and a sharp drop in home sales. The sector accounted for more than 85,000 announced layoffs so far this year, the most in the monthly survey by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago placement firm.
But Texas added 5,900 jobs in financial activities in the past 12 months, with 4,100 added in Dallas-Fort Worth alone.
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