Unemployment in the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area climbed in May, with the local rate now sitting higher than both the Texas and national averages.<\/p>\n
While the increase is small, the Texas Workforce Commission reports the area’s unemployment rate reached 5.4 % in May, up from 5.1 % in April and 4.9% a year ago. That marks a year-over-year increase of about half a percentage point.<\/p>\n
The number of unemployed workers in the region rose to nearly 10,000 in May, up from about 9,400 the month before and roughly 8,900 a year ago, an increase of just over 1,000 people over the past year.<\/p>\n
Despite the higher unemployment rate, the area’s civilian labor force and number of employed workers both grew.<\/p>\n
Roughly 185,000 people are now part of the local labor force, a slight increase from April and from a year ago. The number of employed workers also ticked up to around 175,000, similar to recent months.<\/p>\n
By comparison, Texas posted an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent in May, while the national rate stood at 4.1 percent. Both the state and national rate held steady from April.<\/p>\n
Among local industries, construction saw modest growth over the month, as did Other Services. Manufacturing and Financial Activities both saw declines in employment over the past year.<\/p>\n
Statewide, the Texas Workforce Commission reported broader job growth trends for May.<\/p>\n
TWC Chairman Joe Esparza said the addition of jobs across the state “highlights the industriousness of Texas employers and expanding opportunities for Texas’ highly skilled workforce.”<\/p>\n
TWC Commissioner Representing Labor Alberto Trevi\u00f1o III added that the commission is “ensuring Texas workers have more paths than ever to build rewarding careers.”<\/p>\n
All estimates from the Texas Workforce Commission are subject to revision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unemployment in the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area climbed in May, with the local rate now sitting higher than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[122464,115193,122467,122466,122465,27,29,28,4462,29131],"class_list":["post-343366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-beaumont-port-arthur-metropolitan-area","tag-labor-force","tag-local-rate","tag-national-averages","tag-national-rate","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-workforce-commission","tag-unemployment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343366","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=343366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}