Eric Griffin, Managing Director, Research & Innovation
A hopeful sign for the Dallas Region’s economy, year-over-year job losses in June were not as pronounced as the previous month, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data. This is the second straight month of declining job losses.
For the 12 months ending in June 2020, Dallas faced a loss of 141,600 jobs, a 3.7% decline. This is less than half of the national rate of job loss, where year-over-year employment declined by 8.7%. Among the largest metropolitan areas, only Phoenix had fewer job losses than the Dallas Region.
While job losses of this magnitude are larger than the worst month of the Great Recession, it is clear that many workers who found themselves unexpectedly unemployed in April 2020 have been able to return to a job in May and June with the lifting of restrictions on business operations.
Easing such restrictions, though, may have helped to usher in the recent increasing rates of positive COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the Dallas Region. To combat further spread of the virus, the state re-imposed certain business restrictions in late June which may negatively impact employment in July.
View the full report: Economy in Brief: Indicators for the Dallas Region
The employment picture across all ten industry supersectors in the Dallas Region is trending in a positive direction. Financial activities; mining, logging and construction; and trade, transportation and utilities all added back jobs in June, albeit achieving only slight gains.
Apart from education and health services, Dallas Region industry supersectors outperformed the U.S. average. The two most heavily impacted industries – education and health services and leisure and hospitality – accounted for three-quarters of all job losses in the region.
Finally, the Texas Workforce Commission published encouraging unemployment data. The preliminary, non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the Dallas Region was 8.4% in June, down 3.9 percentage points from May. This compares with a national rate of 11.1% and a state rate of 8.6%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release official metropolitan figures later in July.
“Economy in Brief: Indicators for the Dallas Region” is an ongoing series, presented by Bank of America, that offers easily digestible insights into our economic landscape. The data points and analysis tools allow our business community to make informed decisions based on trends. Our reporting also measures the impact of COVID-19 on our economy.