After steady gains over much of last year, Texas employment growth appears to have stalled last month.
As The Houston Chronicle reports, the Lone Star State only added 400 jobs in December, after gaining nearly 54,000 in November and more than 67,000 in October. That puts the state unemployment rate at 3.9 percent, slightly higher than November’s record low of 3.8.
Meanwhile in Oklahoma, as The Tulsa World reports, the unemployment rate continues to improve—rising from 4.2 percent in November to 4.1 percent in December. In the year from December 2016 to December 2017, Oklahoma’s unemployment rate rose seven percentage points.
Lynn Gray, director of economic research and analysis for the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, praised the state economy, saying: “Jobs up, unemployment down, wages up — that’s the direction we are trending right now.”