Job growth stays steady in Fort Worth-Arlington area — despite economic uncertainty
by Seth Bodine - Fort Worth Report
At the Omni Fort Worth Hotel downtown, more than a dozen people stand in a line with resumes in hand. They’re all waiting to be called by a manager for interviews during a recent hiring fair. A woman comes into the hall and says they had a larger crowd than expected and they’re pulling more managers to conduct interviews. Candidates will be asked if they would be willing to work other roles.
People like Michael Howell are looking for full-time jobs at the hotel. He’s finishing his bachelor’s degree in hospitality management with a focus on travel and tourism at Strayer University in Fort Worth. While he just started looking for a job, he said he’s feeling good about the prospects.
He has some reasons to be confident. Texas, along with the Fort Worth-Arlington metro area, has surpassed the number of jobs it lost as COVID-19 emerged in the spring of 2020. And despite rising interest rates and inflation – and fears of a possible recession – the Fort Worth-Arlington area is still on a job-adding spree that is on par with the rest of the region and state. The hospitality industry was a leader among the sectors that added the most jobs in the Fort Worth-Arlington area.
“I know that there are lots of jobs out there and the world is ready to get back to where we used to be,” Howell said. “So the hospitality industry is definitely going to be booming.”
Fort Worth and Arlington added 58,200 jobs in February compared to the same time last year, a 5.2% increase, according to data from the Texas Workforce Commission. The unemployment rate in Tarrant County was 3.8%, also lower compared to the same time last year in January.
Adam Perdue, an economist at the Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center, expected the high employment growth in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to slow down toward the end of 2022 once the numbers were adjusted. The adjustment, however, hasn’t changed the numbers significantly, he said, and the area is doing surprisingly well.
Leisure and hospitality jobs have led across the board, Perdue said, partially because the industry still hasn’t caught up with the jobs it lost during the pandemic.
“Pretty much across the board, everything’s still looking pretty good,” he said.
Read the full article at Fort Worth Report.