Houston Unemployment

Well it appears that the recession has finally made its way to Houston. It has just been reported that unemployment is at 8.4%. I believe it because I can see it and clients are definitely feeling it. Texas employers, get ready for your unemployment tax rates to go up at the first of the year.

Seems like one of the few industries unaffected right now is health care. Anyone affiliated in any way to the health industry seems to be doing okay. This may change however if Congress is irresponsible and passes sweeping health care legislation. Doctors really don't need another excuse to quit and young brilliant minds don't need another reason to avoid medicine as a profession.

NASA seems to be okay for now; United Space Alliance employees are affected because of the impending shuttle retirement and not because of the recession. There has been a pretty massive layoff here and I have a friend whose last day is October 9. This has to be the absolute worst time to begin looking for a new job.

Not Seeing Much Of A Slowdown Here...And We Had A Hurricane!

Ok, so we are now in the middle of the Christmas shopping season during one of the worst economic times in our nation's history, and I am still having to plan my routes to avoid the mall and freeway traffic.  I really don't see any difference.  The stores seem to be as busy as they always have been during this time of year AND we had a devastating hurricane just a few months ago.  Is the media just trying to instill fear in us, or is this area relatively insulated from the general economic downturn of the country?  The Houston area definitely did not experience the housing boom several areas saw, so there has been nothing to bust.  However, this area is also highly dependent on energy.  It will be interesting to see if the drop in oil prices has a trickle down effect on the economy here.  Will the experience be similar to the early 1980's when oil prices dropped and this area was decimated?  I have a feeling that the Houston economy is much more diversified now than it was then.  Houstonians are resilient folks and if we can handle Ike as well as we did, we can weather this storm too.