Houston Overview

Known as an energy hot spot, the Houston area is home to all the major energy companies, as well as specialty companies that offer services ranging from energy exploration to capture and production. The Houston job market is solid and improving for the area’s 3 million workers.

Houston Job Opportunities

Houston attracts a wide range of companies due to its low business costs and young and educated workforce. The city was the country’s fastest-growing over the past decade and ranks second only to New York City in the number of Fortune 500 headquarters.

Thanks to its energy resources and corporate focus, the trade, transportation and utilities sector drives Houston work opportunities. Professional/business services, government and education/health services are also critical employment sectors. Over the past year, government was the only sector to report a significant loss of jobs in Houston, while the other sectors showed strong single-digit year-over-year expansion.

Houston Employment Trends

Employment in Houston has remained strong relative to the nation’s, though the economy still experienced a hiring dip during the recession. This trend is reflected in the area’s online hiring levels, which were depressed yet still remained solid and are now on the upswing. Houston-area jobs declined during 2009 and the first half of 2010, but have shown steady growth since then. Houston’s unemployment rate, which finished 2011 at 8.1 percent, improved steadily in the early months of 2012.

Moody’s Analytics forecasts that Houston jobs will increase a solid 2.5 percent between Q2 2012 and Q2 2013, more than the 1.3 percent gain expected in the US job supply.