top notch care

5 Austin hospitals rank among best in Texas for 2025, per U.S. News

Ascension Seton Medical Center is the second-best hospital in Austin for 2025.

Ascension Seton Medical Center Austin/Facebook

U.S. News & World Report has released its 2025 rankings of the best hospitals in Texas, and they prove that Austin is in good hands.

Austin's esteemed St. David's Medical Center was rated the 9th best hospital in Texas, moving up one spot from its 2024 ranking. Four more Austin-area hospitals earned spots among the statewide top 35.

U.S. News annually evaluates 581 Texas hospitals to determine which meet the publication's rigorous standards and offer the best care for patients. Hospitals are also ranked among 15 specialties, including cancer; cardiology, heart and vascular surgery; obstetrics and gynecology; orthopedics; psychiatry; rehabilitation; diabetes and endocrinology; and more.

Houston Methodist Hospital reigns as the No. 1 Texas hospital for 2025, followed by two Dallas institutions: UT Southwestern Medical Center (No. 2) and Baylor University Medical Center (No. 3).

The St. David's at 919 E. 32nd St. was declared the best hospital in the Austin area, and it landed in a three-way tie for the statewide No. 9 spot with San Antonio's Methodist Hospital and Houston Methodist Willowbrook Hospital. Its rehabilitation program is the 34th best in the country.

The two other Austin-based St. David's campuses also earned spots in the rankings: The South Austin campus tied for No. 19 with Christus Mother Frances Hospital in Tyler, and the North Austin campus landed in a three-way tie for No. 31 with Fort Worth's Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Southwest and Texoma Medical Center in Denison.

Meanwhile, Ascension Seton Medical Center at 1201 W. 38th St. is the second-best hospital in Austin for 2025, and it maintained its status as the 15th best Texas hospital. It entered in a three-way tie for the designation with San Antonio's Baptist Medical Center and Medical City Dallas.

Baylor Scott and White Medical Center - Round Rock ranked No. 4 in Austin and No. 25 statewide for 2025, tying with HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake in Webster and St. Luke's Health-The Woodlands Hospital.

"These rankings reflect our teams' dedication to quality and innovation, as they make the trusted care for which Baylor Scott & White is known more convenient, personalized, and informed," said Baylor Scott and White Health CEO Pete McCanna in a press release. "We are deeply committed to transforming the experience by listening to our customers, anticipating their needs, and exceeding their expectations."

Elsewhere in Central Texas, the Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in Temple kept its reputation as the 7th best hospital in Texas.

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Jobs report

Texas ranks among top 10 states to find a job, new report says

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

You have a better chance of landing a job in Texas than in most other states.

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

While Abbott proclaimed Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

Austin — 3.9 percent
Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
San Antonio — 4.4 percent
Houston — 5 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.

This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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