Economic Hurricane Yet to Hit Texas Jobs Data

Hurricane Harvey Hit Texas on August 17, 2017. The data for the August Jobs Report, or Employment Situation Report data collection date was August 12th. This means that the data for unemployment and jobs will not be reflected in the monthly employment situation report until the September Employment Situation Report is released this October. What we know is that the authors of the weekly unemployment claims report are promoting the idea that the weekly unemployment claims data is being impacted by both Hurricanes Harvey and Irma right now, and have been being impacted by both of them for two weeks - even though that storm hit on a Sunday and the weekly claims data ends on Saturdays.

There was a spike in the Weekly First-time Unemployment claims data. The Weekly Claims Report for the week ending September 2nd revealed a spike in unemployment claims during a period of time when they tend to decline.  This means that we should see some sort of spike in the September Employment Situation Report.

The was a spike in Unemployment during the month August for all of Texas. There have been a few articles published in the Texas news papers regarding a spike in unemployment. This was a larger spike than was recorded during August of 2008, and larger than what was experienced during August of 2001. Normally there is a decline in unemployed workers from July to August.

The Numbers of Workers - August to August - surged in Eight of Ten Sectors this August. The only two sectors that saw a year over year decline were the Manufacturing Sector and the Information Technology Sector.  We did see July-August Declines in the Leisure and Hospitality Sector and the "Other Services" Sector.

Some interesting take-aways from the data. If you look at the August Only data table you will see that even though the nation peaked in job creation during July of 200, Texas added jobs between August of 2007 and August of 2008. The Manufacturing and IT sectors peaked during August of 2007. Tropical Storm Allison or the events of September 11th 2001 were measured in the data differences between August of 2001 and August of 2002.  There were month to month increases in the Manufacturing, Mining and Logging, IT, and Construction Super Sectors (Sectors) this August. These four sectors are the sectors that have been sluggish nationally.

We are going to see impacts in the employment and unemployment data as a result of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma within the next two or more Jobs Reports. We may even detect an impact from  Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico in the October Jobs report.The State and Local data will not be released until roughly this time next month.

It's the economy.