Texas employers added 18,900 jobs in January, pushing the Lone Star State's consecutive employment growth streak to 43 of the past 45 months.
The state's workforce grew to 14,053,400 people in January, according to data released Friday by the Texas Workforce Commission.
State data typically lags national data. The U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday that the country added 275,000 jobs in February. February data for Texas will not be released until March 22nd.
After year-end revisions, TWC announced that the state's total nonfarm payrolls increased by 263,900 from January 2023 to January 2024, an annual growth rate of 1.9%. This is slightly better than the US growth rate of 1.8%.
Based on revised 2023 data, Texas' seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 3.9% for the eighth straight month. This was down from 4.1% in the same month last year.
“As we move into 2024, Texas' workforce continues to upskill and become tomorrow's workforce,” TWC President Brian Daniel said in a statement.
In January, five of Texas' 11 major industries hit new highs, with services leading the way. Growth in the construction industry also increased, outpacing the national rate by 0.3 percentage points.
Gov. Greg Abbott praised the state's job growth in January.
“When Texans work, Texas works. Today, more Texans are working than ever before in the history of our great state,” Abbott said in a statement.
He credited the state's record business expansion for helping create an employment safety net for future generations of workers.
Texas won its 12th consecutive Governor's Cup last week. Site selection The magazine aims to attract investment in more than 1,200 new or expanded business facilities in 2023. The total was twice his second-largest state's business attraction effort.
In a separate analysis of TWC's year-end revisions, independent research firm Beacon Economics said the new tally means Texas will add about 43,000 fewer jobs in 2023 than originally estimated.
“Texas's economy remains strong and payrolls are not as high as initially expected, which is the nature of survey-based data,” Justin Niakamal, research manager at Beacon Economics, said in a statement. “Overall, government support and information were the only two major industries in the state that experienced job losses during the year.”
The Beacon Economics analysis also showed that the Houston metropolitan area added an additional 31,500 jobs in the annual revision, while Dallas-Fort Worth lost 16,600 jobs.
January data shows 6,400 jobs were lost in D-FW, according to Beacon Economics. Despite the decline, salaries in metropolitan areas still increased by 1.7% year over year.
Thirty-six companies have filed mass layoff notices with TWC so far this year, detailing a total of 4,224 job cuts.
