Job gains/losses, new building contracts, and shipping aviation stats from GHP

May 27 Indicators update

Wendy Natt, May 27, 09.

EMPLOYMENT/UNEMPLOYMENT

Jobs in the 10-county Houston metro region declined by 1.4 percent from April 2008 to April 2009, representing a loss of 35,300 jobs, according to Texas Workforce Commission estimates cited in a May 27 Houston Economic Indicators email update from the Greater Houston Partnership (GHP).

According to the TWC data, Houston fared better than the state of Texas as a whole, which suffered a 1.6 percent drop in employment, reports GHP. Austin remains the only major metro region in the state that’s still gaining jobs, up 0.4 percent since last April.

Greater job losses were seen in Houston’s goods producing sectors - both in terms of raw totals and percentages - than in Houston’s services sectors, says GHP. Construction did the worst, losing 13,500 jobs, or 6.5 percent. In the services sector, the greatest growth was felt in health care services (ambulatory) and government jobs, particularly in public education.

GHP says that Houston is now feeling the impacts of the national recession in ways similar to what the rest of the country has been experiencing since at least the beginning of the year.

Citing figures from human resource service provider Workforce Solutions, GHP says that unemployment benefits claims in the 13-county Gulf Coast Workforce Development Area in April 2009 were 87 percent higher than in April 2008. A labor market analyst for the agency noted that the number of persons unemployed for 15 or more weeks has almost tripled since last year, and that most of the long-term unemployed “are in professional, technical or managerial occupations.”

NEW BUILDING CONTRACTS

The value of new building construction in Houston for April 2009 is down 30 percent below what it was in April 2008, according to McGraw Hill Construction estimates. This is an improvement from the first quarter of 2009, says GHP, when new construction totals were 58 percent lower than in Q1/08.

While GHP emphasizes that these data should be viewed as rough, preliminary estimates, GHP also notes that “the magnitude of the difference between ’08 and ’09…is so great that activity is clearly substantially lower this year.”

AVIATION

While the recession and capacity reductions have brought expected losses to the passenger aviation industry, GHP says that the April data may show signs of improvement over deficits seen in this year’s first quarter. “Only air freight, down 18.5 percent for April, performed more poorly in April than in Q1,” says GHP, noting that this downward trend is “in part, a reflection of shippers changing to other forms of transportation.”

Greater Houston Partnership Houston Economic Indicators report for May 27, 2009.