Unemployment Steady in Austin, Up a Bit in Texas
The job market is neither up nor down lately. Photo by KUT NewsAustin’s unemployment numbers are out today. And they show no change from last month. But the state’s numbers are up slightly.
Austin’s jobless rate for June and July was 6.4 percent. The unemployment rate across Texas went from 7 percent in June to 7.2 percent in July.
Despite a higher official unemployment rate, Texas still added more than 17,000 jobs last month. Alan Miller at the Texas Workforce Commission says the sectors that benefited the most are education and health services.
“All in all, not a bad picture,” Miller said. “But we are at a bit of a loss to explain some of the job losses that occurred in July, especially at the same time when we saw an increase in the numbers of the civilian labor force. Which again is attributable to population growth, but some of the numbers just don’t quite make sense, and they’re going to require us to dig a little deeper and find out what was going on in July.”
Both local and state unemployment rates remain well below the national rate of 8.3 percent.
