Dallas Fed: Texas adds 24,100 jobs in March; state employment forecast holds steady at 3.4 percent for 2018
For Immediate Release: April 20, 2018
DALLAS—Texas added 24,100 jobs in March, according to seasonally adjusted and benchmarked payroll employment numbers released today by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
The state added a revised 42,200 jobs in February. That brings the year-to-date annualized growth rate to 3.5 percent.
Incorporating March employment growth of 2.3 percent and leading index data, the Texas Employment Forecast suggests jobs will grow 3.4 percent this year (December/December), with an 80 percent confidence band of 2.2 to 4.6 percent.
“Texas had strong first-quarter annualized job growth of 3.5 percent which, along with the continued growth in the leading index, bodes well for the months ahead,” said Keith R. Phillips, Dallas Fed assistant vice president and senior economist. “Energy jobs have grown at a sharp 21.7 percent so far this year, accelerating from last year’s 12.5 percent growth. Construction and professional and business services also picked up in the first quarter compared to 2017.
“Growth has also continued to be strong across most of the state’s major metros,” Phillips said. “Houston outpaced the state average with an annualized growth rate of 3.9 percent in the first quarter, while the I-35 corridor of San Antonio, Austin and Dallas–Fort Worth combined grew at a 2.9 percent rate.”
Unemployment rates ticked up in six of the of the nine major Texas metro areas but were flat in the remaining areas in March, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the Dallas Fed. Rates rose in the Brownsville–Harlingen, Dallas–Plano–Irving, El Paso, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, Laredo and San Antonio areas.
The Dallas Fed improves Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) payroll employment estimates for Texas by incorporating preliminary benchmarks into the data in a more timely manner and by using a two-step seasonal-adjustment technique. Texas metropolitan-area unemployment rates from the BLS also are seasonally adjusted by the Dallas Fed.
The Dallas Fed releases its Texas Employment Forecast on a monthly basis in conjunction with the release of monthly Texas employment data. The forecast projects job growth for the calendar year and is estimated as the 12-month change in payroll employment from December to December.
For information on the methodology for the Bank’s Texas Employment Forecast, visit the Dallas Fed’s website.
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Media contact:
Jennifer Chamberlain
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Phone: (214) 922-6748
E-mail: jennifer.chamberlain@dal.frb.org