DALLAS, Dec. 23 (UPI) — Despite the downturn in the oil sector, some metropolitan areas in Texas are showing healthy growth in labor figures, the Dallas Federal Reserve finds.
Lower crude oil prices, off by about 40 percent from last year, are choking cash streams for major oil and gas companies. The trend is reflected in rig counts, which for Texas, the No. 1 oil producer in the nation, are down more than 60 percent from last year.
In a late-year survey, the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers said the number of jobs lost in the state as a result of the depressed oil economy may be worse than initially forecast. When the downturn began in mid-2014, the alliance expected no more than 50,000 jobs would be lost in the state, but its latest forecast gave a conservative estimate of around 56,000.
For the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the Dallas Federal Reserve said it was the education and health services sectors that were the fastest growing for this year, adding 20,100 jobs so far this year.
“Employment gains in the trade, transportation and utilities sector, which makes up the largest share of Dallas-Fort Worth employment, have been strong as well at 4.7 percent, or around 30,200 jobs,” the bank said.
The Dallas Fed in early December said some parts of the state economy were performing better than the rest of the nation, though wages and employment prospects continued to falter as lower crude oil prices become the new normal.
The Texas Petro Index, a metric used to gauge the health of the state’s energy sector, declined for the 11th straight month in October, the last full month for which data are available.
Despite the employment gains, the bank’s latest report said overall economic growth in Dallas was strong, but slower for the Fort Worth area.
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