Higher in hiring
Austin surpassed by Houston in new report of most job openings in Texas
Austin may be the Capital City, but the distinction of job capital of Texas goes to our big-city neighbor Houston, according to a new study.
In October 2018, a review of online job postings by data-mining company Thinkum revealed that a daily average of 4,188 job openings were listed in Houston, compared to 3,227 job openings in Austin.
In terms of the sheer number of daily job postings, Houston ranked fifth among U.S. cities, according to Thinkum. Austin appeared at No. 6, and Dallas, with 2,685 job openings, appeared at No. 12. Seattle held the No. 1 spot, with 10,291 average daily job listings.
The abundance of job listings in Houston can be attributed, in part, to its status as one of the top U.S. metro areas for corporate relocations and expansions, as ranked by Site Selection magazine. In 2017, the Houston welcomed 196 new and expanded corporate facilities.
Career website LinkedIn says hiring in the Houston metro area climbed 14.3 percent in September 2018 compared with September 2017; Austin hiring grew by only 0.4 percent year-over-year. On a seasonally adjusted basis (removing predictable variations for seasonal hiring), Houston hiring went up 0.8 percent from August to September, whereas Austin hiring declined by 1.8 percent.
Those figures are good news for the Houston area, as the unemployment rate in September was 4.1 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared with 3.4 percent in Dallas-Fort Worth and only 2.9 percent in Austin.
A February report from Taylor Smith Consulting noted that the Houston economy had been in recovery mode after the collapse in oil prices and in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. However, one expert says Houston has now mostly bounced back from the economic slump.