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Texas Unemployment Rate Drops To Lowest Level Since Feds Began Tracking It

Tamir Kalifa
/
The Texas Tribune
Rig workers inspect casings that will be loaded into the well in preparation for the hydraulic fracturing process at a Chesapeake Energy drill site in Dimmit.

 

Texas' unemployment rate continues to drop to record lows, with the state's rate for May hitting a seasonally adjusted 3.5%, the Texas Workforce Commission announced Friday. That's the lowest level since the federal government began collecting the data series used to calculate the rate in 1976.

The state's 3.5% unemployment rate breaks the record low Texas set last month at 3.7%.

Over the month, the state added 19,600 non-farm jobs, according to seasonally adjusted data. Jobs categorized as professional and business services topped all other categories, adding 8,100 positions. Education and health services saw the second-highest rise, adding 4,500 jobs in May.

 
Among more than two dozen metropolitan statistical areas in Texas, the Midland metro area recorded May's lowest non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 1.7%, according to the Workforce Commission, while the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro area had the highest rate at 5%.

The Texas Tribune provided this story.