{"id":238099,"date":"2026-04-07T02:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/238099\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T02:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:49:13","slug":"texas-labor-force-hits-historic-high-bryan-college-station-sees-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/238099\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas labor force hits historic high, Bryan-College Station sees growth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) &#8211; Texas\u2019 labor force reached a <a href=\"https:\/\/gov.texas.gov\/news\/post\/texas-hits-historic-highs-for-texans-working-total-labor-force\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/gov.texas.gov\/news\/post\/texas-hits-historic-highs-for-texans-working-total-labor-force\">historic high<\/a> through the first quarter of 2026, with growth reflected in Bryan-College Station.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/laus.nr0.htm\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/news.release\/laus.nr0.htm\">U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,<\/a> Texas now has the largest labor force in state history at nearly 16 million workers. In Bryan-College Station, the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/eag\/eag.tx_collegestation_msa.htm#eag_tx_collegestation_msa.f.p\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/eag\/eag.tx_collegestation_msa.htm#eag_tx_collegestation_msa.f.p\"> local labor force grew from 152,000 in July 2025 to nearly 160,000 by December.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Labor force of Texas v. Bryan-College Station.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/M3NQBLVOPNHPNKKNSITWLNZI5U.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Labor force of Texas v. Bryan-College Station.(KBTX)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Dennis Jansen, a Texas A&amp;M economics professor, said the employment growth has increased. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI think the economy locally is a good symbol, right? It\u2019s that the employment growth has been positive. And actually, I think last year, our employment growth over the year was over 2%, which is higher than the state. That doesn\u2019t always happen, but I think it shows that the local economy is doing quite well,\u201d Jansen said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Local business owners, like Karen Kasper, owner of Witt\u2019s End, said they are experiencing the momentum. Witt\u2019s End said strong worker retention and new hires have kept the business moving forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWell, I mean, goodness, for us to have that retention for so many years is such a blessing. And I think that just the people who have been here are just, they love being here. They love working with our community and with our customer base. And we just try to maintain a positive attitude and a positive environment,\u201d Kasper said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Jansen said the trend is expected to continue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cBut I think the growth in Texas has been ongoing, and the growth locally has been ongoing and I see no reason why it wouldn\u2019t continue to be ongoing,\u201d Jansen said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 KBTX. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) &#8211; Texas\u2019 labor force reached a historic high through the first quarter of 2026,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[91514,91516,27,91515,29,41267,28,54464],"class_list":["post-238099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-bryan-college-station-employment","tag-local-job-growth","tag-texas","tag-texas-economy-2026","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-labor-force","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}