In early December 2008, it was announced that the United States has officially been in a recession since December 2007. The National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. (NBER) is the official arbiter that decides when and if we are in a recession. NBER defines a recession as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real [Gross Domestic Product] GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales.”1 One of the more visible components of that definition is employment.

Texas as a whole has so far done fairly well during this economic downturn. Chart 1 shows that most counties have actually increased total employment in the one year period ending October 2008; only 12 counties reduced employment over this period. Meanwhile, 127 counties increased employment by at least 2.5 percent, including 61 that increased by at least 5 percent.2

Unfortunately, that is not the whole story. While employment was increasing, the labor pool was also growing in many counties. As a result, most counties saw their unemployment rates increase over the same period. Chart 2 shows the increase in unemployment rates from October 2007 to October 2008. In this chart, it is not good to be blue. Only eight counties managed to decrease their unemployment rate, while one additional county did not change theirs (shown in green). The remaining 245 counties all saw an increase in their unemployment rates.

For some counties, those that started with very low unemployment, a large percentage increase in unemployment may have a silver lining in that inflationary pressures on local wages may be reduced. However, quite a few counties (31) already had unemployment rates of at least 5.0 percent in October 2007. After a year of recession, 99 counties had at least 5 percent unemployment by October 2008, including 10 with rates of more than 8.0 percent.

Over the 12 months ending October 2008, Texas has led the nation in job creation. However, the statewide unemployment rate is projected to increase. The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts noted that the state’s unemployment rate “has been at or below the national rate for 22 consecutive months” but projected the rate to continue increasing.3 That is not good news, given that there are already five counties with unemployment rates of at least 10 percent. ✯

1 NBER, http://www.nber.org/cycles.html. 2 All employment and unemployment data in this article is from the Texas Workforce Commission’s Labor Force Statistics for Texas Counties 2000-Present accessed online at http://www.tracer

2 .com/publication.asp?PUBLICATIONID=695.

3 Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. Comptroller’s Economic Outlook. 12 December 2008. Available online at http://www.texasahead.org/economy/outlook.html.