2020 worst year on record for Texas jobs
Economists expect recovery to be slow after pandemic pushed 430K people out of work
The Texas economy in 2020 suffered its steepest job losses in at least 30 years, forecasting a difficult recovery that could take two years or more to return employment to pre-pandemic levels.
Texas ended the year with 430,000 fewer jobs than it began with, exceeding the 370,000 lost in 2009, the worst year of the Great Recession, according to government statistics. The job losses in 2020 were the greatest since the Labor Department began the current data series in 1990.
The Houston area also sustained record job losses. The region’s employment fell by more than 140,000, also surpassing the losses of 2009.
“We never had a downturn like this before,” said Parker Harvey, a principal economist for Workforce Solutions, a regional workforce development agency. “The initial effect is like a natural disaster: It’s abrupt. Then the lingering aftereffects were akin to the Great Recession.”
The state and region ended 2020 with record job losses after a fitful recovery that followed mass layoffs in March and April. As governments ordered all but essential businesses to shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Texas lost more than 1.4 million jobs in March and April and Houston more than 350,000.
The state and local economies both generated modest employment gains in December, the Tex
as Workforce Commission reported Friday, but they have recovered less than two-thirds of those jobs lost in the spring. Economists expect the recovery to continue to advance slowly — at least until COVID-19 vaccinations become widespread — leaving thousands of workers unemployed.
In a typical year, Houston adds between 60,000 and 70,000 jobs a year, said Patrick Jankowski, an economist at the Greater Houston Partnership, a business-financed economic development group. At that pace, it would take two years to recover the rest of the jobs lost in the pandemic.
‘It’s really hard’
Cynthia Galan, 43, of San Antonio has been out of work since March, when she lost her job in marketing for a dental company. Not long after her layoff, she and her family were infected by COVID-19.
She has continued to look for work, without success, as she deals with lingering effects of the disease. Her husband, who lost his job at the Toyota plant, has been able to find only a part-time job at a delivery company. They no longer have health insurance.
Galan has to pay out of pocket for treatment of the lingering COVID-19 symptoms. The couple have needed to get forbearance on their mortgage payments to manage their bills.
“It’s really hard,” she said.
The state and local unemployment rates have fallen since their peaks in the spring, but they are about twice as high as a year ago. In December, unemployment statewide fell nearly a percentage point to 7.2 percent, the Texas Workforce Commission reported. The local unemployment rate was 8 percent.
The state added about 64,000 jobs in December. Houston gained about 12,000 last month.
The pandemic hit the economy unevenly. The
surge in online shopping, for example, fueled jobs in delivery services and warehousing. The transportation, warehousing and utilities sector added 7,600 jobs in Houston in 2020. But other industries were devastated.
The energy industry was one of them. The sector dominated by the oil and
gas industry lost 14,000 jobs last year, and it’s not likely to rebound quickly, Jankowski said.
“Oil and gas will continue to struggle,” he said. “We saw some pickup in the rig count, but it won’t result in a huge rush.”
Consumer-facing businesses were the hardest hit. Arts, entertainment and recreation
shed 12,500 jobs — more than one-third of its pre-pandemic employment.
“That is the saddest number for me,” Jankowski said of the entertainment industry. “If any other sectors lost a third of it jobs that would be a devastation in this economy.”
Food services and drinking places lost 17,800 jobs year-over-year, or 7 percent. More than 10,000 restaurants across Texas have already closed due to the pandemic, according the Texas Restaurant Association.
Adapting to stay afloat
Thomas Nguyen, owner of Peli Peli, a South African fusion restaurant with locations in the Galleria and The Woodlands, was able to survive. But he had to lay off almost all his staff at the beginning of the pandemic.
A Paycheck Protection Program loan helped him hire back most of his staff of 100, but he still has about 20 fewer employees than before the pandemic.
Nguyen also had to shift the business model of the fine-dining restaurant toward takeout and delivery. His chef, for example, created a $10 box-meal menu.
“We realized we had to adjust our concept,” Nguyen said, “because we didn’t see things changing.”