WASHINGTON: Houston’s unemployment rate rose to 4.9 percent in March, up 0.2 percent for the month, the Texas Workforce Commission reported Friday. The number is up from a year earlier, when 4.3 percent of eligible workers without a job. Seasonally adjusted data puts the Houston area at 5 percent unemployment, the national average. The rest of Texas remains at 4.3 percent, though that figure is non adjusted for seasonal fluctuations.
March was a familiar story in Houston as the region’s job market toes the line between marginal growth and slight losses. In some quarters, things got a lot worse during the first three months of 2016.