As the State of Texas continues to ReOpen from the COVID-19 Pandemic, the jobless rate in Texas stands at 10.3% for the week ending May 23, 2020. That places Texas 33rd among the 50 states (with #1 being the highest jobless rate). Total jobless in the State is 1.3 million with 128,105 new claims for the week. As businesses ReOpen, we anticipate that the numbers of jobless will begin to drop.
Washington County appears to be navigating the pandemic jobless surge better than the State of Texas as a whole with April unemployment at 7.8% compared to the Statewide unemployment of 12.8%. Larger metro areas appear to have been harder hit with the Houston metropolitan statistical area (MSA) at 14.2%, Dallas-Ft. Worth MSA at 12.8%, Austin MSA at 12.2%, and San Antonio MSA at 13.2%.
