The Bureau of Labor Statistic’s Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary for October 2013 provides further evidence that the Texas Model works.

According to the report, the Lone Star State’s unemployment rate fell to 6.2 percent, which has now been at or below the national rate (7.3 percent) for 82 consecutive months-almost seven years!-and remains substantially below California’s rate of 8.7 percent.

With Texas’ employers adding 267,400 jobs over the last year-which is more than any other state and 60,000 more than the next highest job producing state, California-Texans have reason to be optimistic about their employment opportunities.

Over the last two months alone, Texas added the third highest number of jobs in September (+36,400) and more jobs in October (+7,400). These 43,800 jobs added during the past two months are an outstanding 12 percent of the overall number of jobs added nationwide.

Since the start of the most recent U.S. recession in December 2007, there have been 704,700 more Texans employed. However, during the same period, there are 474,000 fewer Californians and 1.5 million fewer Americans employed. If you remove Texas’ jobs added from the national total, the rest of the nation employs a shocking 2.2 million fewer people!

Also quite remarkable, Texas’ annualized rate of job growth of 2.4 percent has consistently soared above the rates for California and the national average since 2009 (see figure below). Despite the fall in the national unemployment rate due partially from a declining labor-force participation rate, the unemployment rate in Texas has declined because of extraordinary job growth far above the last year’s increase in the state’s labor force (+168,000).

Other important news from the report include:

  • Industries with the most growth: Leisure and Hospitality (+7,600); Professional and Business Services (+5,000); and Trade, Transportation, and Utilities (+3,700).
  • Industry that shrank the most: Government (-5,200).
  • Texas’ unemployment rate has declined from 6.4 percent in October 2012 to 6.2 percent in October 2013.

Although there remains more work to do to reduce tax and regulatory burdens across the state, the success of the Texas Model is hard to ignore and impossible to dispute.

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