TEXAS – During the month of January 2024, Texas border cities such as El Paso, Brownsville and Laredo showed a decrease in their annualized unemployment rate, according to numbers presented by the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC).
El Paso, recorded a non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 4.5 last January, remaining below the 4.6 recorded in the same month of 2023. Brownsville had a rate of 5.5, down from 6.2 a year earlier.
Laredo recorded an unemployment rate of 4.3 in January 2024, remaining below the 4.5 recorded the previous year; while McAllen, attained a 6.4 at the end of the first month, below the 7.2 recorded in January 2023.
According to the figures presented, El Paso closed January with a total of 17,100 unemployed people, contrasting with the 17,400 that were registered a year ago; while 367,100 citizens were working this year. In Brownsville, 10,100 people ended January without a job, 1,100 less than those recorded in 2023, while 172,500 were employed.
The city of Laredo reported 5,200 unemployed at the end of the first month of 2024, compared to 5,400 in the same period of 2023, while 116,900 people were working in January 2024; in McAllen, 24,500 citizens were looking for work, while 357,000 people were employed at the end of January 2024.
The Texas labor market marked unprecedented growth with month-over-month increases in January in jobs, employed Texans and the civilian labor force. Following annual benchmark revisions to the 2023 labor market data, Texas’ seasonally adjusted job count increased by 18,900 in January to reach 14,053,400 jobs and achieve growth in 43 of the last 45 months.
According to the revised data, total Texas nonfarm employment grew by 263,900 jobs from January 2023 to January 2024, representing an annual growth rate of 1.9 percent.
The seasonally adjusted Texas civilian labor force grew over the month by 12,800 to 15,143,400 in January. This included the addition of 16 thousand employed during the month. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate registered at 3.9 percent for the eighth consecutive month, according to the revised 2023 data, while declining from the January 2023 rate of 4.1 percent.
“Texas continues to lead the nation in job growth and economic stability,” said Bryan Daniel, TWC president.
During January, five of Texas’ 11 major industries reached series highs. The most significant private sector growth occurred in Other Services with 5 thousand jobs added, while 4 thousand 400 jobs were added in Professional and Business Services.
Another 4 thousand jobs were added in Private Education and Health Services during the month. In addition, annual growth in the construction sector outpaced the national sector by 0.3 percentage points in January.
The Midland Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) maintained the lowest unemployment rate among Texas MSAs with a non-seasonally adjusted rate of 2.6 percent in January, followed by the Amarillo MSA at 3.1 percent, and College Station-Bryan at 3.3 percent.
