HEALTH, RETAIL OUTMAN BIG OIL.
OIL and gas may be the backbone of Houston’s economy, but energy companies are not the city’s biggest employers.
That distinction belongs to giant retailers including Walmart, H-E-B and Kroger; health care providers such as Houston Methodist, Memorial Hermann Health System, Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; restaurant chains like McDonald’s and transportation providers such as United Airlines.
Only one oil and gas company, Exxon Mobil, breaks into the top 10 biggest employers, according to a survey by the Houston Chronicle.
There are 7 million people in the Houston area, so it makes sense so much of Houston’s growth is tied to basic service providers, filling storefronts dominated by grocery stores, health care facilities and fast food outlets that grow as population expands.
“They have to be fed, they have to be clothed and their heath care needs to be taken care of,” said Patrick Jankowski, senior vice president of research for the Greater Houston Partnership.
The health care industry is Houston’s biggest private sector employer, responsible for providing jobs for about 11 percent of Houston area residents. Much of the growth in recent years has come from new subdivisions as population centers have pushed farther from Houston to Katy, Clear Lake, Baytown and Conroe.
Houston Methodist opened its first hospital two years ago in The Woodlands after determining the community that has benefited from the nearby expansion of Exxon Mobil would grow 11 percent over the next five years. The hospital, which opened with 187 beds, is already planning to add another 100 beds. The $240 million expansion will kick off in September and is scheduled to open in 2022 and will create 350 more jobs, said spokeswoman Stefanie Asin.
Methodist also finished construction last year of a 22-story tower known as the Walter Tower at the Texas Medical Center to replace the original main building built in 1951. The new $700 million tower has 366 patient beds, up from 300.
That expansion is spurring demand for new employees, especially nurses, patient care assistants and medical assistants.
“On any given day, we have 1,000 job openings,” said Asin.
Retail, Houston’s secondlargest industry, employs about 10 percent of area residents, a category that includes grocery stores, clothing shops and home and garden big box stores. The hospitality industry — specifically bars and restaurants — is the third biggest private-sector industry in Houston. (Only government, with dozens of area school districts, is larger than any private sector industry.)
Health care, retail and hospitality, however, wouldn’t exist without the fundamental industries that bring new money to Houston such as oil and gas, health care research and space science. Jankowski breaks the Houston economy into equal portions with the energy industry generating about one-third, the U.S. economy generating onethird and global trade, an increasingly important sector to Houston that has led the nation in nine out of the past 10 years in exports, generating another third. The trio work in tandem, or at least try to.
“Global trade has done a lot for us when we’re struggling with energy,” said Jankowski.
At the moment, that robust trade, a strong national economy and higher energy prices have given Houston a boost, a relief from 2015 and 2016 when the area lost 75,000 jobs in the oil and gas industry as the energy market crumbled, and 2017, which showed only modest gains.
Houston is finally back on track with solid regular growth, said Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston. Houston added about 73,000 jobs last year, representing an annual growth rate of about 2 percent, which has been Houston’s historical annual average for the past three decades.
“It’s nothing spectacular,” said Gilmer. “But it’s back to where we’d like to be.”
“They have to be fed, they have to be clothed and their heath care needs to be taken care of.” Patrick Jankowski, Greater Houston Partnership