LAREDO, TX – During the month of March 2024, Texas border cities such as Brownsville, Laredo and McAllen showed several variations in their annualized unemployment rate, with El Paso being the only one that showed no change, according to numbers presented by the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).
El Paso recorded a non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 4.5 last March, unchanged from the same month in 2023. Brownsville had a rate of 5.4, down from 5.7 a year earlier.
Laredo registered an unemployment rate of 4.3 in March 2024, remaining above the 4.2 of the previous year; while McAllen reached 6.0 at the end of the third month, below the 6.2 registered in March 2023.
According to the figures presented, El Paso closed March with a total of 17,200 unemployed people, contrasting with the 16,900 registered a year ago; while 368,500 citizens were working this year. In Brownsville, 9,900 people ended March without a job, 400 less than in 2023, while 174,200 were employed.
The city of Laredo reported 5,300 unemployed at the end of the third month of 2024, compared to 5,000 in the same period of 2023, while 117,800 people were working in March 2024; in McAllen, 22,900 citizens were looking for work, while 359,300 people were employed at the end of March 2024.
The Texas labor market maintained its momentum in March to reach a 36th consecutive month of positive annual growth.
The total number of seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs in Texas increased to 14,115,700 after 19,100 jobs were added during March, reflecting growth in 45 of the last 47 months.
Texas also led the nation with the largest absolute year-over-year increase in total nonfarm employment, which grew by 270,700 jobs from March 2023 to March 2024. This represents a 2.0 percent annual growth rate in Texas, which exceeded the U.S. growth rate by 0.1 percentage points.
The seasonally adjusted Texas civilian labor force grew over the month by 20,800 to 15,189,900 in March. This included the addition of 12,100 Texans employed during the month.
According to TWC figures, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate registered at 3.9 percent for the tenth consecutive month, while showing a 4.0 percent unemployment rate drop from March 2023.
The largest job addition during the month occurred in Leisure and Hospitality, which reached a new series high with 7 thousand 300 jobs added. Another 3,700 jobs were added in Mining and Logging, 2,400 more openings during March, which also marked a year-over-year growth rate of 4.6%, 2.8 percentage points above the industry’s national growth rate.
The Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) added 67,800 nonfarm jobs over the year, which was the nation’s second-largest absolute nonseasonally adjusted increase in total nonfarm employment among the nation’s MSAs.
The Midland MSA maintained the lowest unemployment rate among Texas MSAs, with a nonseasonally adjusted rate of 2.6% in March, followed by the Amarillo and College Station-Bryan MSAs at 3.1%.
