Although the rest of the country is considering biking to work in order to avoid paying astronomical gas prices, Houston’s economy is benefiting from all the dollars spent at the pump. With the energy industry providing 48 percent of Houston jobs, more money spent on fuel means more opportunities for those seeking work.
Whereas the rest of the country is experiencing rising unemployment, the city’s jobless rate remains relatively flat at 3.9 percent, a full 1.6 percent lower than the national average. The economic uncertainty that has caused employers throughout America to decrease the size of their staffs hasn’t seemed to touch Houston, where job growth is currently higher than 2 percentage points.
“There aren’t very many reasons for Houstonians to feel anything but positive aout the economic outlook right now,” said Mike Inselmann, president of Houston housing consulting firm Metrostudy. “Nobody’s expecting oil to go back to $20 a barrel.”
The optimism should come as no surprise. According to the city’s business promotion agency, the Greater Houston Partnership, 43 of the nation’s 144 publicly traded oil and gas exploration and production firms the city home. But the energy providers aren’t the only one’s adding jobs. According to senior economist and vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Houston, Bill Gilmer, the money spent on gas benefits every industry in Houston.
“When you are talking about adding 100,000 jobs per year, it trickles down pretty well,” he said. “That’s like growing a whole new metropolitan area-you not only create those jobs directly, there are all of the secondary benefits in terms of new retail establishments, new car dealerships, everything you need to stock a new metro area inside the Houston area.”
The city also has plenty of opportunities for recent graduates. According to CollegeGrad.com’s list of the 25 Best Cities for Entry-Level work, Houston is second in the nation in regards to the number of job listings posted on-line for inexperienced workers. The website found that the city has approximately 2,500 of these positions listed on the Internet at the time.
Tags: Houston, Job Search, Texas