Texas employers are continuing to add new jobs, but the growth rate is beginning to taper off.
The state added 7,600 jobs in September, the lowest monthly gain in more than a year, according to data released Friday by the Texas Workforce Commission. The jobless rate, however, held at 3.4% for the fourth straight month. Unemployment is at a record low since the state began tracking it in 1976.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, the jobless rate was 3.1% — down from 3.3% in August. Midland continued to lead the state with only 2% of its workforce unemployed.
TWC Chairman Bryan Daniel said continued low unemployment shows Texas’ economic strength.
“Texas’ fourth straight month of record-setting low unemployment rates highlights the competitive strength of Texas businesses, whose broad-based growth across industries provides exceptional opportunities for our highly skilled workforce,” Daniel said in a statement.
In the last 12 months, Texas employers added 300,000 new jobs.
The professional services and construction sectors led September’s growth, gaining 9,600 and 7,200 jobs, respectively. Sectors showing job declines included mining and logging; trade, transportation and utilities, and leisure and hospitality.
But Texas’ jobs gains began to slow down in August, when the state added about half as many positions as it did in July. The state has posted job gains for 112 consecutive months.
“After strong growth in June and July, Texas jobs decelerated in August and September,” said Keith R. Phillips, assistant vice president and senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “Mining jobs declined at an 8.0 percent annualized rate in the third quarter. The weakness in oil and gas extraction is spilling over to other sectors such as transportation and warehousing, which experienced job losses in both August and September.”
Phillips said manufacturing and construction employment remain robust, “in part driven by continued strength in petrochemical and refining activity.”
Year-over-year job growth stands at 2.1%, compared to 2.4% a year ago, according to the Dallas Fed. It expects Texas to end the year with a gain of 263,700 jobs.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump visited the Dallas-Fort Worth region and used the state’s economy as a major theme of his re-election campaign stops. Those stops included a visit to a new $50 million Louis Vuitton leather workshop near Keene in Johnson County, where 150 jobs have been created. The Paris-based luxury brand has pledged to expand to 1,000 workers.
Trump’s campaign aides said 774,400 jobs have been added in Texas during his presidency, including 70,700 manufacturing jobs, compared to 55,400 lost during the Obama administration.
