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In the News: Austin Ranks #1 Best City For Jobs

April 30, 2009 By 1 Comment

Want to see all recent Top Ten Lists where Austin Ranks?

View Austin Tops The Nation
For a comprehensive list. 

 

Forbe’s is showing Austin some more love, this time as the number one best city for Jobs.  4 other Texas metros rounded out the remaining top 5 spots of this national top-ten list!

  1. Austin-Round Rock, Texas
  2. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, Texas
  3. San Antonio, Texas
  4. Fort Worth-Arlington, Texas
  5. Dallas-Plano-Irving, Texas
  6. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, Wash.
  7. Salt Lake City, Utah
  8. Raleigh-Cary, N.C.
  9. Oklahoma City, Okla.
  10. Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Ore.-Wash.

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In the News: Austin fighting back; jobless rate drops for 2nd month

April 19, 2009 By Leave a Comment

For the second consecutive month, Austin’s unemployment rate has decreased as the region tries to regain the losses it’s sustained in the recession.

Austin added 5,100 jobs in the month of March, helping drop the metro area’s unemployment rate from 6.3 percent in February to 6.2 percent, according to the latest figures from the Texas Workforce Commission.

Over the last 12 months, the area has added a cumulative total of just 3,300 jobs, for a 0.4 percent growth-rate. Though modest, growth of any kind is seen as a sign of health as most of the cities across the country continue to struggle with major job losses.

Indeed, Texas as a whole lost 47,100 jobs in the month of March, the TWC report shows. That brings Texas back down to its fall 2007 employment level and increases the statewide seasonally adjusted unemployment rate from 6.5 percent in February to 6.7 percent last month. The national unemployment rate now stands at 8.5 percent. Texas recorded a net loss of 106,500 jobs in the past 12 months; nationwide job losses total 4.8 million over the last year.

“The Texas unemployment rate remained well below that of the nation, although Texas suffered a net loss of jobs in March,” said TWC Chairman Tom Pauken. “While the national recession continues to have an impact, TWC is focused on helping Texans find employment and weather these challenging economic times.”

Original Link to Article with the Austin Business Journal

National, Texas, and Austin Unemployment Rate Over Time

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In The News: Texas Tops Job Growth, Austin Ranks 5th of 88

February 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Austin is all a buzz in the Business Journals again, this time ranking for job growth.

Houston had the best year of any market, picking up an additional 57,300 jobs. Rounding out the top five were Dallas-Fort Worth (up 43,300 jobs), San Antonio (up 14,900), Washington, D.C. (up 11,800), and Austin, Texas (up 9,600).

Here are the top 10 of the 88 markets, ranked in order of raw employment growth between December 2007 and December 2008:

graph_up1. Houston, up 57,300 jobs
2. Dallas-Fort Worth, up 43,300 jobs
3. San Antonio, up 14,900 jobs
4. Washington, up 11,800 jobs
5. Austin, Texas, up 9,600 jobs
6. Virginia Beach-Norfolk, up 7,700 jobs
7. New Orleans, up 6,600 jobs
8. Oklahoma City, up 5,800 jobs
9. El Paso, up 5,300 jobs
10. Baton Rouge, up 4,000 jobs

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Is over-building causing our slow real estate market?

April 30, 2008 By 1 Comment

Top 30 Residential New Construction Cities (click to enlarge):

Austin/Round Rock hold the #12 spot for New Construction based on single and multi-family building permits.

4 of the top 30 markets show negative job growth and they all happen to sit on the southwest and southeast coasts (Los Angeles, Riverside/San Bernardino, Miami and Tampa) where the media began picking up news of economic trouble.  They saw a great deal of new construction but a -12% job growth.  Again, these are the areas that saw appreciation at 200-2000% per year compared to Austin’s steady and slow appreciation and strong, positive job growth..  That’s a volatile market compared to a steady market.  Of course, we are hurting on a minor scale because of the media attention to the housing sector, but this is another great example of how Austin isn’t suffering like the cities the media keeps covering.

The E-P ratio is the number of jobs divided by the number of permits.  A number less than 1.0 is generally a sign of an unhealthy market, Austin’s E-P ration is 1.2.

Here’s another look at Austin’s economic health.  I’ve been hearing and reading the media attacking builders nationwide for causing our economic downturn.  Although builders should seriously take a break on cities like Los Angeles and Miami, Austin’s builders seem to be properly managing inventory and new starts.  Los Angeles (and other east and west coast markets) saw a boom in the housing market much earlier than we did here in Austin.  To fill the gap, new builders sprang up and moved into the areas.  Now they need to find work in other sectors or cities.  Austin saw a boom in new builders and new construction only a year or two ago when we had our largest seller’s market this decade in 2006.  The job sector saw much less boom as well so it is much easier to stabilize as our market stabilizes as well.

Expect to see new construction continuing as Austin continues to see job and population growth, as well as the wealth of the population growing.

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