Solomon Group Real Estate Blog

By Beverly Kerr, Chamber Vice President of Research

For the fifth month in a row, Austin takes first place in a ranking of the 50 largest metros based on the percent increase in payroll jobs over the preceding 12 months.

Friday’s release of September 2010 payroll jobs numbers by the Texas Workforce Commission and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics saw Austin sustain growth over 2% year-over-year seen in the previous two releases of this data. Austin has added 17,300 jobs, or 2.3%, over the last 12 months. Job growth is now positive in 22 of the 50 largest metros.

In Austin, four industries lost jobs and seven industries added jobs in the last 12 months (and one industry remained unchanged). The industries that see positive growth are manufacturing, financial activities, professional/business services, education/health services, leisure/hospitality, other services, and government. The most robust gainer in both numbers and rate of growth was leisure/hospitality with 10,100 new jobs, or 12.2%. Three other private industries (professional/business services, education/health services, and other services) also enjoyed above average growth.

Most months in this recession, we’ve attributed the highest job losses and rates of loss to manufacturing and construction/natural resources, but that is not the case in September. The two goods-producing industries combined lost only 400 jobs (-0.5%) in the last 12 months (a small 200-job gain one helping to offset 600 jobs lost in the other. Of the three service-providing industries with negative growth, retail lost the greatest number, 1,900 jobs (-2.3%) and information lost at the greatest rate, -3.1% (600 jobs). Private service-providing industries, with both gainers and losers, have seen a net gain of 14,700 jobs (2.9%) over the last 12 months, while government has seen a gain of 3,000 jobs (1.8%).