Texas employers continued to add jobs at a steady pace in October (the latest numbers), following solid gains in September. The latest figures from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) reveal that the state’s employers added 49,500 nonfarm payrolls during October, a 0.4% increase over the previous month.

Nonfarm employment in the state has increased by 4% since the beginning of the year, compared to 2.4% at the national level, with Texas accounting for nearly 15% of nonfarm jobs added nationwide this year.

Texas’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 4%, slightly higher than the national figure, which stands at 3.7%. Nationally, the unemployment rate increased 0.2 percentage points over the previous month. The state’s labor force also increased by 0.1% during the month, whereas, at the national level, the labor force declined. At 4%, Texas’s current unemployment rate has returned to its post-cycle low set in July of this year.

“Despite near constant talk of a recession in the media, the Texas labor market continues to defy expectations,” said Taner Osman, Research Manager at Beacon Economics. “As national figures revealed this week, consumers continue to spend money, and for as long as that continues, the labor market will remain healthy.”

The Beacon Employment Report | Texas is a unique analysis of Texas’ employment numbers and trends. Each month, we link our own econometric predictions to data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Labor Market Information Division of the Texas Workforce Commission to identify important changes in employment across industries and regions. The Beacon Employment Report is also one of the few analyses that uses seasonally adjusted numbers, which are critical to revealing accurate trends and insights within data. The analysis is a sample of the kind of research available from Beacon Economics.