Texas benefits from quality workers, low cost of doing business, existing industrial base
Texas manufacturing employment growth is beginning to slow after three years of robust expansion, adding just 8,500 manufacturing jobs from May 2014 to May 2015, according to the 2015 Texas Manufacturers Register®.
The tepid growth amounted to just a half per cent expansion in the past year. Tom Dubin, president of the Evanston, IL-based publishing company, which has been surveying industry since 1912, says the uncertainty in oil markets has finally caught up to the Lone Star State.
“Growth is beginning to lag largely due to the decline in oil prices,” he said in a press release.
Manufacturers’ News reports Texas is now home to 22,567 manufacturers employing 1,245,117 workers. According to the database publisher, industrial employment in Texas grew 6.2 per cent between May 2011 and May 2014.
“Texas gets high marks for a quality workforce, its stronghold in tech and innovation, and a lower cost of doing business, all of which have helped industrial employment grow,” said Dubin.
Manufacturers’ News reports employment growth in industrial machinery stalled over the survey period, after growing nearly 13 per cent since May of 2011. The industrial machinery sector ranks first in the state for number of manufacturing jobs, employing 184,258.
Employment in the state’s second-ranked oil and gas extraction sector continued to rise, but at a slower rate than in previous years, growing 6.6 per cent, in contrast to the 10.7 per cent rate of growth reported over the 2013-2014 survey period. The oil and gas industry currently accounts for 142,399 Texas industrial jobs.
MNI reports industrial jobs rose 3 per cent in Houston over the year, but declined one per cent in both Fort Worth and Dallas, and declined 1.4 per cent in San Antonio.
Established in 1912, Manufacturers’ News, Inc. is the nation’s oldest and largest publisher of industrial information.