Economic Indicators show low unemployment for Bryan-College Station MSA

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – A new report released by Texas A&M’s Private Enterprise Research Center (PERC) showed unemployment remains low for the Bryan-College Station Metropolitan Statistical Area.

According to the report, which looks at the month of August, unemployment remained at 3.3 percent. Unemployment dropped to that rate in June. The BCS MSA has the second lowest unemployment rate in the state tied with Amarillo.

“If you look statewide in Texas the unemployment rate is a little higher than ours but it has been constant for several months if you look at the United States unemployment rates it’s been fairly constant for several months and all of these employment rates are very low by historical standards, so there’s no sign on the employment or unemployment front that there any kind of issues forthcoming,” Texas A&M PERC Executive Director Dennis Jansen said.

Non-farm employment also grew slightly at .02% which means there are more jobs in the economy. However, not every sector is seeing the same growth Jansen said.

“Looking over the last year or two we’ve done some studies and one sector that is not growing or not growing very much is government,” Jansen said. Government includes Texas A&M workers even faculty, so local, state, and federal government is not the sector that’s been growing its been the private sector.”

Local restaurant owner Wade Beckman thinks employment has improved immensely since 2020.

“Just seems like there is more people looking for jobs, still a little bit of a challenge for our kitchen crews probably based off the number of restaurants in College Station,” Beckman said. “Overall since the pandemic till now, we’ve seen continued improvement in the quality of people and the number of people.”

Still, Beckman said many of those employees aren’t walking in like they used to, so businesses have to be even more hands-on. Many of the applicants are college students with some high schoolers as well.

“You have to kind of reach to them a bit more through social media and some of the job hiring sites, its a little bit of a different world,” Beckman said.

Highlighted in the report was fall enrollment for Texas A&M which increased by 3.4% which is over 2,400 students. Jansen said Texas A&M is a significant factor as to why unemployment is so low in the area.

“We have a lot of seasonal employment, Texas A&M students show up in August and they take jobs, some of them, and they take jobs at restaurants and such,” Jansen said. “Then over Christmas, they go home and they’re not working at restaurants or if they stay in town they home in May or June and they’re not working at restaurants so they’re not unemployed here.”

Even with the holidays coming up Beckman is optimistic about the future.

“As the holidays come restaurants slow down a little bit, you kind of need less staff, and then they come back in the spring some of them want to start new jobs after they finished their first semester, so I think it’s going to be continued improvement in the employment and hiring,” Beckman said.

The full report can be viewed here.