Increase in jobs predicted for Abilene this year
march 18, 2010
By Jaime Adame
An economic consulting firm is predicting Abilene will experience job growth of 1.5 percent by the fourth quarter of this year, with similar growth predicted statewide.
The growth would come after Abilene has shed some 3,000 jobs during the 12-month period ending in January, a 3 percent decrease in nonagricultural jobs, according to a separate report from the Texas Workforce Commission.
The forecast, published earlier this month by Moody’s Economy.com and USAToday.com, predicts the strongest growth in the natural resources and mining sector, where oil and gas-related jobs have been hit hard by the current recession.
Growth above 1.5 percent also was predicted for jobs in transportation and warehousing, utilities, professional and business services, other services, government and education and health services.
Those industries are expected to more than offset continued job losses in 2010 for the construction and manufacturing fields, according to the forecast.
The forecast looked at all metro areas and also all states.
“I certainly think that’s doable,” said Karr Ingham, an Amarillo-based economist who studies Abilene. “It would represent what I would call a modest recovery, which doesn’t really get us back to where we were pre-recession.”
Texas was predicted to experience a 2.1 percent increase in jobs, the highest predicted increase of any state.
Long-term, the forecast predicted a steady increase in jobs for the Abilene area through 2013.
Another study, published in January, also attempted to look years into the future of Abilene.
At the end of 2011, Abilene’s unemployment rate will be 5.8 percent, according to study published in January by the The United States Conference of Mayors and The Council for the New American City. At the end of 2009, the report, from IHS Global Insight, estimated the unemployment rate for the Abilene metro area to have been 6.6 percent (the Texas Workforce Commission estimated the Abilene unemployment rate to be 6 percent in December 2009).
That study predicted that the Abilene metro area will not return to its pre-recession employment peak until the second quarter of 2012.
© 2010 Scripps Newspaper Group — Online
