Texas’ economic growth proves this is not the 1980s

Friday, October 14, 2016

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Texas’ economic growth proves this is not the 1980s

Published 4:41 pm, Friday, September 30, 2016

M. Ray Perryman

The Texas economy has added 190,600 jobs over the past year, and employment has risen in 16 of the past 17 months. Last month, nine of the 11 industry groups tracked by the Texas Workforce Commission added jobs. All of this occurred despite the end (at least for now) of a major oil surge.

For those of us who have been around a while, the differences between what has happened this time when oil prices dropped precipitously and what went on in the 1980s is striking. I am regularly asked why that is and whether we just haven’t yet seen the really bad economic times but they could be coming. Here’s the short answer: This is not the 1980s.

In the 1980s, the Texas economy was not multifaceted as is today. We had oil, and that drove much of the business activity in the state. At the peak of that oil boom, the concentration of oil and gas employment in the state was more than 75 percent higher than it was at the more recent pinnacle.

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Category: Economic Development, Texas, Economy