Real estate markets follow an ebb and flow dependent upon the variables of local economy. In Houston, where the ebb is currently ebb-ing very hard, job growth has come to screeching halt compared to the rest of the country.
Data from the Dallas Federal Reserve published in the Houston Chronicle shows that job growth in the United States rose by 1.8 percent this year. Houston, however, did not enjoy that type of growth.
Houston’s job market grew by only 0.2 percent this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bill Gilmer, director of the Institute for Regional Forecasting at the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business, published a report earlier this year highlighting the epidemic of a slowing job market in the metro area.
His report showed trending data back to 2012, when nearly 118,600 new jobs were created in the area. At the time, that was 4.3 percent positive change from the year before. The following year saw another 89,800 jobs added to the market. In 2014, though, at the tail end of the shale boom that started Houston’s booming job market in 2002, new jobs dropped significantly.
Data courtesy of Bauer College of Business University of Houston.
Gilmer’s projections for 2016 showed that nearly 40,000 jobs would be extinguished throughout the year. This negative growth has impacted the real estate market so strongly that many developers have either tabled plans for new development, or scrapped the projects entirely.
There was an estimated total 117,800 new jobs created in 2014. In 2015, there were only 15,200 new jobs.
Much of Houston’s job growth was based on the oil market. As prices per barrel have dropped and continued to do so, the jobs that once provided the backbone for the metro economy have lessened.
How Houston matches up to other big cities
According to the Dallas Federal Reserves data, Phoenix experienced the biggest annual growth in jobs in June. With a 3.6 percent increase, Phoenix’s growth is double that of the national figures.
Job growth for nation and 12 markets
Both Los Angeles and San Francisco saw 3 percent growth in their respective job markets, while Miami trailed close behind with 2.7 percent growth.
Washington D.C. saw 2.5 percent growth in its market. New York City, also above the national percentage, experienced 2.1 percent job growth.
