Texas economy is on the rise.
We all know that the past year has deeply impacted the global economy. Many businesses had to shut down, and hospitality and service industries (food, travel, & hotels) were at a near standstill with their advertising spending. In 3rd quarter 2020, the DFW hotel occupancy rate fell 27% compared to 3rd quarter 2019. Suffice to say, things looked pretty bleak last year.
According to the Texas Economic Development Cooperation (TxEDC), Texas is now the world’s ninth largest economy. This means that regardless of the challenges ahead, Texas has survived and continues to be economically well-positioned. And despite a sharp decline in the energy sector, Texas jobs have declined less than the national average. While we may not catch up to pre-pandemic days, growth in jobs since January has drastically improved.
Another reason to be optimistic about Texas’ economic growth is that in 2020 several companies including Amazon, CBRE, Tesla, HP and Oracle moved or expanded their operations in Texas. In fact, Texas is ranked #1 for fastest-growing state economy by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
There’s reason to believe that the economy will continue on its upward trend. The Texas Business Outlook Survey performed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas shows that a majority of service industry firms believe that business revenues will be back to pre-Covid levels by the end of year. Revenue rose sharply in March for the service sector, reaching multi-year highs. The state revenue index has risen from 19 points to 21.6, indicating a positive surge of expansion in revenue growth. In contrast, March of 2020’s revenue dropped to minus-66 points, the lowest number since the collection of data began in 2007.