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Austin Jobless Rate Dips in September

Using a Texas Workforce Solutions computer to search for work. Austin's jobless rate dipped to 6.8% in September
Jeff Heimsath for KUT News
Using a Texas Workforce Solutions computer to search for work. Austin's jobless rate dipped to 6.8% in September

The Central Texas unemployment rate dipped a little in September, falling to 6.8%.  

The Texas Workforce Commission says the government, education and health services sector added the most jobs in the Austin area last month.  But unemployment is still a subject of deep concern for the Austin metro area.

“I think that what we’re seeing in unemployment is that we still have over 60,000 people out of work.  So the job growth is definitely a positive sign.  It shows that we’re going in the right direction.  But it also shows we’ve got a lot of work to do.  There’s still got a lot of people out of work,” said spokesperson Weston Sythoff with Texas Workforce Solutions.

The leisure and hospitality sector added jobs for an eighth straight month, but Sythoff admits some of those positions are what he called “survival jobs,” keeping people employed until they can find a higher-paying job.

Statewide, the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1%

Ian Crawford joined KUT as News Editor in 2008, after spending over four years as a reporter/anchor at KLBJ Radio in Austin. He began his broadcasting career while still in high school in Southern Oregon. During high school and college at the University of Oregon, he worked at times as a reporter, news anchor, sports play-by-play reporter, music host and commercial producer before moving to Texas in 2003.