The Texas unemployment rate reached 8.5 percent in August, its highest rate since June of 1987.
That’s an increase from 8.4 percent in July.
Those numbers come from the U.S. Department of Labor. The numbers were confirmed by the Texas Workforce Commission, which says the state lost 1,300 jobs in August. Texas gained 8,100 private-sector jobs, but those jobs were wiped out by job losses in the public sector.
For the year, Texas has added 272,000 jobs in the private sector but lost 19,000 government jobs. In August alone, the state lost 11,500 jobs in local government, for a net loss of 9,400 government jobs.
The Texas unemployment rate ranks 27th, tied with Colorado.
Gov. Rick Perry is trying to make the Texas jobs record the centerpiece of his campaign.
Indeed. Maybe cutting billions of dollars from the budget and laying off thousands of government workers wasn’t the best way to add jobs and grow the economy. I’m just saying. Apparently, the Perry response to this is to blame the President for the loss of local and state government jobs. Funny, I thought Republicans used to call that sort of thing “shrinking government”, and liked taking credit for it. One more thing to add to the list of things they used to support but now oppose, I guess.