Houston trails Austin in job growth

The Austin Chamber of Commerce recently published a release showing that job growth in Austin has been outstripping Houston's since February 2020.

According to the release, while year-over-year job recovery and growth have been strong in both Austin and Houston, Austin exceeded Houston's growth in November. Compared to February 2020, Austin job growth is up 4.1% and is the second best performing metro area in the United States. Houston, however, is still down 2% over that same period and ranks 27th in the United States.

From November 2020 to November 2021, Austin grew 7.8%, adding 85,800 jobs and ranking second compared to other metro area growth rates in the United States. By comparison, Houston showed job growth of 4.8%, placing it 19th on the list.

Houston's not-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 5.1% in November 2021. Austin came in at 3.2% over the same period, nearly two full percentage points lower than Houston. Seasonally adjusted, the former clocks in at 5.7% and the latter at 3.5%.

From October to November 2021, Houston matched the statewide average job increase numbers of 0.6% while Austin nearly doubled that with a 1% increase in added jobs.

The job growth rates since February 2020 for other Texas metro areas are as follows: Dallas-Plano-Irving — 4.1%, fourth-place ranking among the 50 biggest metro areas. Fort Worth-Arlington — 2.2%, fifth-place ranking among the 50 biggest metro areas. San Antonio — 1.3%, ninth-place ranking among the 50 biggest metro areas.

From November 2020 to November 2021, among top performing U.S. metro areas within Texas, Fort Worth (5.0%) and San Antonio (4.7%) ranked 17th, and 20th in job growth, respectively. 

According to Culturemap Houston, the city is still ranked highly on Indeed as one of the best cities for recent graduates seeking employment and the Greater Houston Partnership expects 75,500 jobs to be created in 2022.

Nationally, Las Vegas, Nevada ranked first in job growth at 8.5% during the same time period.