Jobs are heading south once more as population shifts originally driven by the Covid pandemic become entrenched and work patterns changed over a five-year period.
Cities in Texas were among the biggest job gainers, according to a RealPage Analytics report. Nationally the Dallas/Fort Worth metro saw the largest increases in work opportunities. Dallas added 450,000 jobs, boosting its employment base by 17.1%, while in Fort Worth an influx of 140,000 jobs resulted in 13.2% growth. Percentage-wise, however, Austin was the big winner, growing its workforce by 22.3% and 245,000 jobs. Houston’s 263,000 new positions lifted its jobs base by 8.4%.
In absolute number of new jobs added, Atlanta came second only to Dallas/Fort Worth. The Georgia metro added 273,000 positions to its payrolls, hiking total employment by 9.6%. Education, health services, leisure and hospitality were the main draws.
Two Florida metros, Tampa and Orlando, also attracted jobseekers, adding 174,000 and 140,000 new positions for gains of 11% and 13% respectively.
Out west, two markets – Phoenix, AZ and Riverside, CA – also made it into the top 10 with 11% increases each. The report attributed some of Riverside’s gains to workers who left Los Angeles in search of more affordable housing during Covid.
Similarly, the report blamed an exodus of workers from New York for a 5.6% increase in Philadelphia’s working population, which grew by 167,000. The Big Apple, though it has the largest employment base in the nation, added only 126,900 jobs, or 1.7%. “Job growth has been getting back to normal in New York more recently, but the five-year number includes the losses the market suffered in the initial COVID shutdown, demonstrating just how hard the market was hit,” the report noted.
The data shows nationwide employment nosedived in March 2020, as the country absorbed the threat of Covid. By November 2023, however, it had risen above its November 2018 level, suggesting growth is back on track.