Texas adds just 39,000 jobs in August as COVID-19 hospitalizations soar statewide

Editor’s Note: This story is being updated.

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Texas created 39,300 jobs in August – less than half the previous month – as the highly contagious Delta variant skyrocketed COVID-19 hospital admissions and slowed economic growth.

According to the Texas Workforce Commission on Friday, that was the lowest monthly job gain since April.

Texas’ seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 5.9%, 0.3 percentage points less than in July, the commission said. The state’s unemployment rate remained higher than the US, falling to 5.2% last month.

The leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants, bars and hotels, lost 25,600 jobs in August – by far the most in any industry. This is also the first monthly decline since February, when an Arctic cold front paralyzed much of the Texas power grid for days.

Almost 102,000 jobs had been created in the leisure and hospitality industries in the past five months, a promising sign of a recovering economy.

However, throughout the pandemic, consumers and employers have been sensitive to the increase in COVID cases and hospital stays. With the rise of the virus, business has declined, slowing the recovery.

Non-farm employment in Texas is still close to 47,000 jobs as of February 2020 before the pandemic resulted in lockdowns and massive job losses. There were 759,000 unemployed in Texas last month, including 193,000 in Dallas-Fort Worth.

As COVID vaccinations accelerated in the spring, job gains in Texas also rose. The state created 93,600 jobs in July, revised upwards from only 81,000 according to preliminary estimates.

But the Delta variant infects the unvaccinated in large numbers, especially younger people, and hospital admissions in Texas doubled in August from their July high.

The Biden government and employers have pushed more people to get vaccinated, including ordering vaccinations as a condition of employment in many workplaces. However, heads of state, led by Governor Greg Abbott, have spoken out against mandates on vaccines and the wearing of masks.

That has not prevented a decline in certain public sectors.

Recreational and hospitality job losses were highest in restaurants and bars, but hotels also lost thousands of jobs. Texas had over 96,000 additional recreational and hospitality jobs in February 2020, before the pandemic, so the industry has a long way to go.

Retail, another sector very vulnerable to consumer behavior, lost 700 jobs – the first monthly decline since April.

The manufacturing industry also lost jobs last month, down 2,200. The manufacturing sector had gained 15,000 jobs in the past three months.

The job growth has been led by professional and business services, a large category that includes lawyers, accountants, computer systems design, management and administration. The sector created 29,600 jobs in August, which is a good indicator of Dallas-Plano-Irving, a subway division with a high concentration of these workers.

Health services and private education institutions have created 17,800 jobs, while the government, which includes public school teachers, created 1,800, the Personnel Commission reported.

Mining and logging created 2,900 jobs as Texas’ energy sector continued to grow. The construction industry, which had lost jobs due to the decline in commercial construction, recorded an increase of 300 jobs. It was the first month since March that Texas had net construction employment growth.

The Dallas-Plano-Irving unemployment rate was 4.6%, not seasonally adjusted, the commission said. The comparable rate in Fort Worth-Arlington was 4.9%.

Amarillo had the lowest unemployment rate of any metropolitan area in Texas, 3.6%, not seasonally adjusted. Austin was the next lowest value at 3.8%.

McAllen’s unemployment rate was 8.9% and Beaumont’s was 8.8%, the commission said.

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