Dallas-Fort Worth sees substantial job growth since the pandemic began, report finds
Employment in Dallas-Fort Worth has grown by more than 4% since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic two years ago, according to a recent Brookings Institution report. Compared with 52 of the country’s largest metros, DFW has experienced post-pandemic recovery fairly well.
The metroplex ranked second highest in job growth, beating out major metropolitan areas New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia. Austin was the only metro in the country to report higher job growth, according to the report.
This largely could be due to considerable growth that Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin saw during the first year of the pandemic. From February 2020 to the summer of 2021, 64,000 new residents relocated to Dallas-Fort Worth, while 48,000 relocated to Austin, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Fort Worth unemployment rates experienced a 35% decline since last year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. The city saw unemployment of 3.9% in May 2022, a rate lower than Texas as a whole. Last month, 4.2% of Texans were unemployed, a rate that has declined by nearly 65% since May 2020, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Over the past 12 months, major industries such as trade, transportation and utilities; professional and business services; and education and health services saw job growth by more than 6%. Meanwhile, the leisure and hospitality industry saw growth by more than 17%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Government employment was the only industry to see a slight decline.
Dallas-Fort Worth has simultaneously seen real estate growth as more families move to the metroplex. Throughout the pandemic, DFW housing listing prices grew by more than 24% and multi-family rent grew by nearly 20%, data show.
