While the rest of the country is suffering from high fuel prices and the rising cost of other commodities, Houston jobs and the city’s economy as a whole are on the rise.
The City of Houston employed a total of 2,619,300 people in June 2008, a 2.1 percent increase from last year, according to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. A Detroit News article notes employment in the city has grown 2.8 percent since last year, the highest among the nation’s 39-largest metropolitan areas, and more than nine times the national average.
“In nearby Texas City, dozens of contractors’ trailers are lined up outside the gates of massive oil refineries and petrochemical plants, evidence of the billions of dollars in upgrades going on inside,” the article states. “Machine shops have more work than they can handle. And students from the local community college are being snapped up for $30-an-hour plant operator jobs, sometimes before they complete their two-year training programs, part of an intensifying scramble for qualified workers.”
Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, has seen an increase in its economy since the beginning of the year. The city had a 3.4 percent job growth rate in February, higher than that of the nation’s 12-largest metropolitan areas in the past year.
According to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article, Houston can thank it’s booming oil industry for the economic upswing.
“With oil prices at historical highs topping $100 a barrel, this is no time for companies involved in finding and producing crude to be sitting idly by,” the article notes.
The bigger oil companies in Houston include ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Corp., both of which rank among the biggest oil companies in the nation. The city also is home to U.S. operations for European oil companies BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.
Smaller independent oil companies located in Houston have contributed to the 86,000 jobs city employers added between February 2007 and February 2008. In some cases, energy companies are even having a hard time finding enough workers, particularly engineers.
Houston’s construction industry also rose 5 percent in February from last year, and the city’s manufacturing industry increased about 2 percent. Voters in the city recently approved an $805 million bond for school construction, which is expected to create jobs building 24 new schools and renovating 134 others.
According to ABC News, construction permits in Houston are up 30 percent this year and at least 100,000 new jobs have been created so far. Even Mayor Bill White is in on the city’s bustling economy, calling for more firefighters and police officers and lower property taxes.
