Many officials are reporting that the economy is beginning to stabilize, and now a local economist is predicting that most of the key sectors will gain Houston jobs by the fall of 2010.
Barton Smith, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston, has said that he thinks “the worst is behind us.” He predicts that Houston will lose about 13,000 jobs, or .5 percent of its workers, during 2010. However, he said, those job losses will take place at the beginning of the year and the city will begin to gain jobs by the end of the year.
Not all industries will see an increase in employment, though, as Smith predicts that the construction, manufacturing and finance industries will continue to struggle during 2010.
Overall, Smith predicts that 62,000 Houston jobs will be lost by the end of this year, which would be a 2.5 percent decrease in employment when compared to 2008. During 2008, Smith said the best case scenario would be if Houston lost 11,000 jobs, but it was much more likely the city would lose 37,500 jobs.
Part of the problem in Houston, according to several officials, is the state of natural gas, which has decreased in price to below $3. In addition to low prices, there currently seems to be a low demand and high inventories of heating when it comes to natural gas.
Local labor market statistics show that Houston’s economy is having some trouble rebounding. Even though the city added jobs during September – the latest month for which labor data is available – the local unemployment rate continued to increase.
During September, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown area saw its unemployment rate increase from 8.4 percent to 8.5 percent. However, the city’s current rate was still lower than the national unemployment rate at the time of 9.8 percent.
The area had a total non-farm employment of 2,516,600 workers during September, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is up from 2,510,400 workers during August, but a 3 percent decrease from last year.
Tags: Houston jobs