Dallas Fed: Texas employment forecast weakens slightly; 12,400 jobs added in August

DALLAS—The Texas Employment Forecast released today by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas indicates that jobs will increase 2.9 percent in 2023, with an 80 percent confidence band of 2.6 to 3.3 percent.    

This is nearly flat with the previous month’s forecast of 3.0 percent growth for the year.

The forecast is based on an average of four models that include projected national GDP, oil futures prices and the Texas and U.S. leading indexes.  

Texas added 12,400 jobs in August, according to seasonally adjusted and benchmarked payroll employment numbers.

Texas added a downwardly revised 28,200 jobs in July.

“Job growth slowed in August, and July growth was revised down, suggesting the labor market may finally be cooling off after registering such strong growth in the past two years,” said Luis Torres, Dallas Fed senior business economist. “Surprisingly, private sector job growth was near zero in August. Looking by sector, there were increases in oil and gas, leisure and hospitality, financial services, other services, manufacturing, and government employment. Information services, education and health services, professional business services, trade and transportation, and construction, reported job losses.” 

Additional key takeaways from the latest Dallas Fed report:

• The forecast suggests that 399,600 jobs will be added in the state this year, and employment in December 2023 will be 14.1 million.
• Texas employment grew an annualized 1.1 percent month over month in August, while July growth was revised down to 2.5 percent.

The unemployment rate increased in most of Texas’ major metro areas, including Dallas–Plano–Irving, Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land, Austin–Round Rock, Fort Worth–Arlington, Laredo and McAllen–Edinburg–Mission, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the Dallas Fed.

The unemployment rate was flat in San Antonio–New Braunfels, El Paso and Brownsville–Harlingen.

The Texas unemployment rate statewide was 4.1 percent in August, unchanged from July.

Additional information about the Texas Employment Forecast, plus seasonally adjusted and benchmarked Texas jobs data and metro unemployment rates, may be found on DallasFed.org.

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Media contact:
Jon Prior
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Phone: 214-922-6857
Email: jon.prior@dal.frb.org