Unemployment Rate Up Nearly 1% in Austin-Round Rock Area

According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the unemployment rate across Texas rose to 7.5% in June, but remained two percentage points below the U.S. rate of 9.5%. The rate for the Austin-Round Rock metro area was 7.1%, which was a 0.9% increase from May. For the ten counties in the CAPCOG region, the rate also increased by nearly a point to 7.0%. There were 9,300 more unemployed individuals in the CAPCOG area compared to a month ago, while the number of employed people also increased by 2,200 from the total one month ago.

Compared to the other 24 metro areas in Texas, Austin-Round Rock’s unemployment rate was tied for the second lowest increase from May to June 2009. So I guess that is one small piece of good news in this latest release. Below is a table of how Texas’ metro areas measure up in this statistic.

(Click image to view larger version)

We’ll continue to monitor the unemployment data releases and post information on our Data Points blog. To view an employment summary for the counties in our region, please this site.

Chris Ramser