Special Questions

Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey

Data were collected February 13–21 and 91 Texas manufacturers responded to the survey.

NOTES: 91 responses. In Feb. '23, the question asked about 2023 versus 2022.

NOTES: 84 responses.

NOTES: 22 responses. This question was only posed to those answering "significant reliance" or "some reliance" in question 2.

Texas Service Sector Outlook Survey

Data were collected February 13–21 and 268 Texas business executives responded to the survey.

NOTES: 266 responses. In Feb. '23, the question asked about 2023 versus 2022.

NOTES: 248 responses.

NOTES: 77 responses. This question was only posed to those answering "significant reliance" or "some reliance" in question 2.

Texas Retail Outlook Survey

Data were collected February 13–21 and 55 Texas retailers responded to the survey.

NOTES: 55 responses. In Feb. '23, the question asked about 2023 versus 2022.

NOTES: 53 responses.

NOTES: 13 responses. This question was only posed to those answering "significant reliance" or "some reliance" in question 2.

Special Questions Comments

These comments have been edited for publication.

• We have not had a problem finding people who say they want to work, but most do not exhibit a sound work ethic. We had 60 percent turnover last year and expect the same in 2024.

• All of our employees are local, and our new hire is from our area.

• Labor is available from undocumented immigrants. Temp services are full of them. We do not participate. My sense is that ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is nonexistent, and that is allowing some segments to finally get staffing that was previously unavailable.
• We would welcome immigrant workers with employable skills, however, we have not had many come our way.

• We have had a slight increase in reliance on staff in new roles from other states (West Coast).

• Venezuela is a source of applicants.

• We are still having a hard time hiring for open positions.
• Workers new to the Texas area have become part of the available labor pool, but we have been ramping down our production workforce via natural attrition due to lower demand—meaning less reliance on the labor pool as a whole.
• Hiring hourly employees for the manufacturing plant is difficult but seems to be improving.

• Skilled employees are hard to find. Skilled people moving from out of state who normally wouldn't be available are in the market. We have only hired one person from out of state, but we are certainly open to hiring more.

• We have really seen an increasing disconnect between labor expectations on wages, benefits, paid time off, flex time schedules, work from home and work ethic compared with the realities of global markets. I believe a correction in the labor markets is coming due to productivity decreasing as costs are increasing. The advent of artificial intelligence, robotics and automation will help reduce dependency on labor that is just not available locally. New technologies are going to expedite efforts to replace the workforce, and we see signs that this is already happening. We are at the breaking point where it’s not worth chasing under-performing labor options and just forgo expanding investments and operations in Texas to move elsewhere or simply scale down existing business units that are not profitable. We are less and less able to compete with China and elsewhere [that have] more and cheaper labor not to mention aggressive tax incentives on exports and other forms of government assistance.

• Congress needs to quit dithering and dramatically increase the number of working visas awarded.

• We are still facing a shortage of employees and people applying for jobs. Of the recent employees hired over the past year, none has been from out of state.

• We have recruited some top-tier mechanics from California over the past two years.

• We have not hired anyone who emmigrated from another country, but we have worked with several immigrants to buy houses. They are incredible people and contribute greatly to our overall economy. We have also worked with several people that have moved here from other states. So while we have not had the need to hire anyone, we have certainly benefited from the migration to Texas, both immigrants from other countries and U.S. citizens moving here from another state.

• We're in a small-to-mid-sized city, so our candidates for hire are local.

• Especially in maintenance and skilled trades, we see very few U.S. natives stepping up to sweat, learn and build a hands-on career.
• Interest rates and market uncertainties still have some clients holding off until after the presidential election.

• We are aggressively hiring technicians and salespersons; we don't really care where they come from.

• Much of our workforce is fully remote (e.g., software engineers,) and we have always had several employees who permanently reside in other states and countries.
• Since our employees are highly skilled, we don't see the migrants from other countries being a viable employment source. We have recently expanded our recruiting to outside the state of Texas to try and find good employees.
• We have hired workers who have moved here from different states, but I can't say that we rely on workers from different states.
• There has been a slight increase in queries from candidates from outside the state. These have been generally candidates with minimum, entry-level experience, and they do not meet the experience requirement for the available positions.
• We've had this need for nonexempt staff (particularly in the Houston area) and for engineering staff across the firm.
• We hire advanced-degree engineers. The majority of advanced-degree engineers are foreign nationals. As a result, our hiring naturally includes foreign nationals.

• There once were some doctors, you see,
  Flocking southward, to Texas with glee.
  With better prospects in store,
  And taxes much lower,
  Their practice there blossomed, carefree!

• From our professional staff (physicians,) 60 percent to 70 percent are domiciled outside of Texas when job offers are sent to prospective hires. Other technologists and nurses often have relocated for other reasons, and perhaps 30 percent to 40 percent are not originally Texan.

• We have placed several domestic migrant candidates in a variety of professional roles over the past year and have DFW client companies who are willing to pay relocation fees to find the talent they need.

• A resolution to the issues at the border needs to be brokered, and it needs to allow a path to employment and eventual citizenship.
• We are bringing in seven H-2B working visas to assist us.

• Typically, our workers from another state are military.
• We cannot hire from outside the U.S. since we are required to maintain compliance to Department of Defense and Department of Transportation regulations on nationality of our technicians.

• Post-COVID, our business has been flat because of rising interest rates. We are staffed appropriately for the current business environment, but if business increases, we will be hiring.
• Not so much in our business, but a few of my friends in the medical and biotech industries are having a hard time getting workers from out of state because of the political issues in Texas regarding women's rights and extreme education issues.

• We are working to recruit high-talent employees, and many of those are from outside of Texas. Due to the size of our company, we are not able to economically hire people needing visa sponsorship. About 10 percent of our workforce was not born in the U.S., but they have existing visas or work permits before joining our company.
• We have tried to hire refugees, but the paperwork was never correct. Immigration reform really needs to happen in order to fulfill the labor needs and curb inflation.

• One new employee moved here from New Mexico.

• We will be reducing staff unless conditions improve in the next 60 days.

• The arrival of a strong Cuban community has added a reliable source of new employees.