Texas employers are creating jobs at a steady clip

Higher oil prices, which have spurred drilling activity across the state, provided a boost to the Texas and Houston economies, which are adding jobs at a steady pace.

Texas employers added 9,500 jobs last month, after boosting their payrolls by 6,700 jobs in February, the Texas Workforce Commission reported Friday. The job gains were led by professional and business services, oil and gas, and construction. Oil and gas companies added jobs for the sixth straight month, gaining 4,800 jobs in March.

The state’s unemployment rate rose slightly to 5 percent in March, as more people entered the labor force seeking work. The jobless rate here is well above the national average to 4.5 percent.

In greater Houston, employers added 30,900 jobs

over the 12 months that ended in March, a 1 percent gain, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. The biggest job generators were government agencies, which added 14,300 jobs over the year, a 3.5 percent gain, and education and health services, which added 11,400 positions, a 3 percent increase.

The question is whether the Houston area’s recent job gains are real after two years of essentially no growth, said Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston. If Houston continues to add jobs at the current pace, the Houston area is on track to gain something like 50,000 jobs this year, which would be “fantastic,” Gilmer said. Last year Houston added just 18,700 jobs.

Some of the optimism for continued growth, however, relies upon relatively high oil prices, in the $60-per-barrel range.

“But at $49 a barrel,” Gilmer said, referring to Friday’s price for crude, “it won’t keep us going like it has over the past five or six months.”

Crude settled in New York Friday at $49.62 a barrel, down $1.09.

Ross Harvison, who surveys about 50 local businesses on prices, production, sales, inventories and other factors to gauge economic activity for the Institute for Supply Management to gauge activity in the area, said the Houston economy has showed signs of slowing recently.

“But we’re still doing much better than we were doing a year ago,” he said, when oil prices were coming off of 13-year lows.

The Houston area jobless rate — which is not adjusted for typical seasonal hiring and firing patterns tied to major holidays and school schedules — was 5.7 percent in March, up from 4.9 percent a year earlier. Houston oil and gas companies, despite recent hiring, still have 4,400 fewer jobs than a year ago.