Texas adds 17,300 to payrolls; jobless rate falls to 8%

The Texas economy has added jobs for two months in a row after about a year in recession, providing a strong indication the state is in the early stages of a recovery.

Employers in the state expanded payrolls by 17,300 jobs in November across a broad range of industries, the Texas Workforce Commission said Friday.

That followed a gain of 52,300 jobs in October, according to revised figures also released Friday. The revised October number was higher than the 41,700 preliminary figure announced last month. The Texas unemployment rate fell to 8 percent in November from 8.3 percent the month before.

“Two months don’t necessarily constitute a trend, but I really think we are seeing a trend line going up now,” said Bernard Weinstein, an economist with Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business. “It’s going to be a slow process of recovery, but that process seems to be under way.”

During October and November, the state’s employers added nearly 70,000 jobs, with gains in such categories as education and health services, hospitality and leisure, professional and business services, and finance. The data are adjusted to account for seasonal factors.

But some industries continued to lose jobs, particularly manufacturing and construction. Moreover, more than half the job gains during the two-month period came from the government, not the private sector.

According to job data kept by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, private-sector employment fell in October but edged up in November.

Overall employment posted two consecutive months of gains for the first time since mid-2008, the Dallas Fed said.

“It’s very slight, but positive nonetheless,” said Keith Phillips, an economist in the Dallas Fed’s San Antonio branch. “It does show the process of bottoming out.”

Like the Texas Workforce Commission, the Dallas Fed relies on employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the Dallas Fed performs its own seasonal adjustments and incorporates updated information from unemployment insurance records more frequently than the state and federal agencies.

National figures

At the national level, unemployment fell in 36 states and the District of Columbia in November.

The U.S. economy has not added jobs since the end of 2007. But the pace of losses has slowed significantly in recent months, with 11,000 job losses in November – the smallest monthly decline in nearly two years.

The national unemployment rate stood at 10 percent last month, down from 10.2 percent in October.

Texas avoided job losses until late 2008, but employment plunged during the first nine months of this year, shedding about 325,000 jobs during that period. Now the economy appears to be turning the corner, analysts said.

“We’re in the early stages of this recovery,” said Dana Johnson, chief economist of Dallas-based Comerica Inc., a financial services company. “Texas had a recession that started later and was shallower than in the rest of the country. It makes sense to me that we would be one of the first states to exit the recession.”

Gains by category

In Texas last month, jobs increased in several categories. Employers added 5,100 jobs in mining and logging, a category that includes oil and gas drilling.

Other net gainers included leisure and hospitality, with 4,800 jobs; financial activities, with 4,700; and professional and business services, with 3,300.

Jobs in trade, transportation and utilities, which includes the retail business, fell by 4,500. Employment in manufacturing fell by 4,200 jobs, while employers cut 2,500 construction jobs.

Unemployment in Dallas fell to 7.9 percent in November, down from 8.3 percent in October.

Unemployment in Dallas was only 5.7 percent in November 2008.

The local figures on joblessness, unlike state data, are not adjusted to reflect seasonal variations.