The Texas unemployment rate for January rose slightly to 6.3 percent but remained well below the national figure as the state gained 10,400 jobs from a month earlier, according to unemployment figures released Friday.
The data for January normally would have been announced in late February, but once a year, the Texas Workforce Commission and the Bureau of Labor Statistics revise previous job reports based on additional information received during the year.The state's February jobs data will still be released this month.The commission said the higher jobless rate in Texas compares with 6.2 percent in December and 7.2 percent in January 2012, a figure that was revised down a tenth of a percent from its original estimate.The U.S. unemployment rate for January was 7.9 percent, and it slipped to 7.7 percent in February, the government said Friday. Both state and national numbers are adjusted for seasonal fluctuations.The Texas Workforce Commission said state employers continued to expand their payrolls in January and added 310,900 nonfarm jobs in the past 12 months.Fort Worth-Arlington's jobless rate was 6.8 percent, compared with 7.4 percent a year earlier and 5.7 percent in December. Those numbers are not adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, such as holiday retail hiring, and compare with an unadjusted state jobless rate of 6.9 percent in January.Commission Chairman Andres Alcantar said in a news release that the Texas economy added jobs in all 11 major industries over the last year. Leisure and hospitality saw the most growth, adding 8,900 jobs in January alone and about 62,500 over the last year, for a 5.9 percent annual growth rate, according to the commission.Mining and logging, the category that includes oil field production, added 19,700 jobs over the 12-month period. Construction added 28,500.Private businesses added 304,700 positions over the last year, the commission said.Midland, in the booming Permian Basin oil patch, had the lowest unemployment rate in January, at 3.4 percent.McAllen-Edinburg-Mission was the highest, at 11.6 percent.Staff writer Jim Fuquay contributed to this report.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
