Texas received some welcome news last week when it was found that the state had lowered its unemployment and increased the number of jobs in the state.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) released data showing that unemployment fell by 3.9% in December, making it the first time since February 2020 that it fell below 4%.
In addition, the state gained more than 13 million jobs.
But the interesting thing is the sectors where those new jobs went to.
According to the data, most of the growth went to the education and healthcare sectors. But why is that?
Angela Woellner, press officer for the TWC, told The Dallas Express that the growth in these industries was due to their “sensitivity to and responsiveness to overall population growth, which is certainly a factor in Texas.”
“Prior to the COVID pandemic, Education and Health Services was the only major industry that never registered an annual employment decline from the beginning of the data series in 1990,” Woellner said in an email.
The TWC is responsible for tracking 11 different industries, and “Healthcare and Education” are combined into a “super-sector” with the fourth highest job count from the December 2022 data: more than 1.8 million jobs.
Healthcare made up the majority of job growth in the super-sector, Woellner said. Since total employment of healthcare and social assistance makes up the majority of jobs compared to education, it is not a surprise, she said, that the growth of the industry leaned more toward healthcare.
According to Woellner, while projected employment is expected to top three million, these industries are expected to grow by 529,286 by 2030, according to projections made by the TWC in 2020.
“The large number of job listings in Education and Health Services currently signals a strong demand for labor by Texas employers,” Woellner said, who cited data from Help Wanted Online, which showed postings for the fields have risen by 18.6% in 2020, 65.3% in 2021, and 42.0% in 2022.
All of this is good news, particularly for job seekers in the healthcare field. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) announced last week that the starting pay for state hospitals and state-supported living centers has been increased.
“Maintaining a highly skilled, well-trained healthcare workforce is critical to providing quality healthcare and increasing access for Texans across our state,” Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. “By increasing salaries and wages to be more competitive, HHSC is addressing critical staffing needs and bringing more hospital beds back online. Together, we are bolstering recruitment and retention of the best and brightest health professionals to serve Texans in our state hospitals and state supported living centers.”
The purpose of the salary increase is to help fill the thousands of vacancies needed in order to staff the various state hospitals.
Texas has shown that job seekers looking for work have plenty of options in education and especially healthcare.