The economy continues to produce more jobs despite several possible headwinds. In fact, public and private sector payroll increased by 339,000 last month – but what about San Antonio?
“I’m just looking for a job, and they’re helping me out, you know, with finding employment. And they’re helping me out, you know, with what resources that they have,” Tracy Lopez said.The latest numbers show that 43,973 locals are seeking meaningful employment. Although that may seem like a lot, our community has a total labor force of 1,286,856 people.
“Today, we are still at about 3.4% unemployment, which is actually lower than the state’s 3.7% unemployment. So we’re doing really, really well over the course of — from April 2022 to April 2023, we added about 44,000 jobs,” said Lopez.“We’re below pre-pandemic levels, right? Great, great indicator, great job growth — 44,000 new jobs. Great increase in the labor force — 43,000 people new into the labor force,” Lopez said.
“We have been struggling with the labor market ever since the pandemic. So we’re finding more families or individuals that are applying for jobs that are having a hard time, wanting to work in the clinics,” Garza Cortez said.