COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – The Texas economy gained 331,100 nonagricultural jobs from April 2012 to April 2013, an annual growth rate of 3.1 percent compared with 1.6 percent for the United States.

According to the Real Estate Center’s latest Monthly Review of the Texas Economy, the state’s private sector added 312,200 jobs, an annual growth rate of 3.5 percent compared with 2 percent for the nation’s nongovernment sector.

Texas’ seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 6.4 percent in April from 7 percent a year earlier. At the national level, unemployment decreased from 8.1 to 7.5 percent.

All Texas industries except the transportation, warehousing and utilities industry had more jobs last month than a year ago. The state’s construction industry ranked first in job creation, followed by the mining and logging industry, leisure and hospitality services industry, and professional and business services industry.

All Texas metro areas except Wichita Falls, Texarkana and Beaumont-Port Arthur had more jobs last month than in April 2012. Midland ranked first in job creation, followed by Odessa, Fort Worth-Arlington, Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown and Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos.

The state’s actual unemployment rate in April was 6.1 percent. Midland had the lowest unemployment rate followed by Odessa, Amarillo, Abilene, Lubbock, San Angelo and College Station-Bryan.

Houston’s annual job growth rate in March ranked first among the nation’s 12 largest metropolitan areas – at 3.8 percent, according to recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Dallas-Fort Worth area was No. 2, with 3.4 percent annualized job growth. The area has added more jobs for each of the first three months of the year. The national growth rate was 1.5 percent for the 12 months ended in March. More…

Texas communities have a new resource to help attract business and development opportunities to the Lone Star State. The Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX), and the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC), in partnership with Decision Data Resources, has developed SitesOnTexas 2.0, a web-based geographic information system (GIS) software which allows users to create data-oriented reports and maps, which support economic decisions and help monitor regional progress. More…