If you’re looking for evidence of an economic slowdown, you’ll have a hard time finding it in Austin’s red-hot job market.

The region ended 2022 with a December unemployment rate of 2.7%, according to data from the Texas Workforce Commission that haven't been adjusted for seasonal factors, down from 2.9% a year ago and after holding steady at 2.8% in November, October and September.

The slight dip comes despite mounting headwinds nationally and locally — including rising interest rates, cooling housing markets and increasing numbers of layoffs in the high-tech sector — that have raised fears the broader economy could be headed for a recession.

What's clear from the latest unemployment figures, however, is that trends have yet to put a dent in overall demand for workers.

Here are some key takeaways from the job numbers:

More:Will pain in tech, housing industries slow Austin's economy in 2023?

Austin isn't alone

Statewide and nationally, unemployment also remains low — just not as rock-bottom low as in the Austin area.

The jobless rate in Texas came in at 3.6% in December, compared with 3.7% in November and 4.2% a year ago. Nationally, the unemployment rate ended 2022 at 3.3%, down from 3.4% in November and 3.7% in December 2021. Those figures aren't adjusted for seasonal factors.

Jon Hockenyos, president of Austin-based economic analysis firm TXP Inc., said the low levels of unemployment are indicative of the vast numbers of jobs that still need to be filled even as the economy cools. Early retirements, deaths and reduced rates of workforce participation in the COVID-19 era, resulting from issues such as limited access to child care, have contributed to the trend, Hockenyos said.

“In terms of the basic workforce, there is no slowdown in the need for people," he said. "Most businesses have unfilled positions," particularly in consumer-facing industries such as retail and hospitality.

Still, he and other economists say they expect the situation to change over the coming months — and unemployment to climb — as the U.S. Federal Reserve continues to increase interest rates in a bid to tame inflation.

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That's because the extremely tight labor market has been fueling intense competition for workers and higher wages — known as wage inflation — making it a key target for the Fed as it tries to bring overall inflation into check.

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Lorie Logan, who began work in August, alluded to that this week during her first major policy speech, which she gave at the University of Texas' McCombs School of Business. Logan is a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee, which sets interest rate policy.

“The outlook for inflation hinges in large part on how much and how rapidly the labor market eases," Logan said. The current high rate of inflation in the cost of services "is a symptom of an overheated economy, particularly a tight labor market, which will have to be brought into balance" for overall inflation to return to sustainable levels.

But even if the unemployment rate rises in the Austin metro area — encompassing Travis, Williamson, Hays, Bastrop and Caldwell counties — a number of economists have said they don't expect it to do so by more than about a percentage point because of the region's strong business climate. That would mark a significant potential increase from the current level, but that rate that would still be low by most measures.

High-tech sector holding steady

As things stand, there's little indication so far that a steady stream of layoff announcements nationally by some prominent high-tech companies has been having a major impact on Austin's big tech sector, at least in terms of raw numbers of jobs.

The number of workers in the employment category that includes much of the region's high-tech industry climbed by about 1,400 in December, compared with November, and is up by more than 10,000 over the past year, at 163,000.

That's despite announcements of job cuts at some big-name tech companies with significant Austin operations, such as Amazon, Intel and Facebook parent Meta Platforms, joined on Friday by Google.

Hockenyos said the trend is partly attributable to timing, because layoff announcements aren't immediately reflected in unemployment figures.

But he also said many high-tech employers in the Austin metro area still appear to be ramping up and adding workers, a byproduct of the huge influx of companies that have flocked to the region in recent years and its status in the tech sector as a growing industry hub.

More:What we learned from a wild 2022 in Austin's housing market

Rough patch for construction sector

The direction of the local construction sector is more murky as higher interest rates take the sizzle out of the region's once booming housing market.

The volume of home sales in the Austin metro area — after breaking multiple records in recent years and elevating the local market to the hottest in the country in a number of national rankings — slumped by double digits throughout much of 2022, compared with the same months of 2021, according to data from the Austin Board of Realtors.

Local jobs in the sector that includes construction totaled 71,800 in December, off by 800 compared with November and by 3,500 over the past year.

Still, jobs for specialty trade contractors, many of whom work at construction sites, were up slightly compared with both November and December 2021, at 44,800.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin unemployment continues to fall, hitting 2.7% in December