HOUSTON (Dec. 7, 2023) — The Greater Houston Partnership forecasts the Houston region will see job growth in 2024, although at a slower pace, as interest rates, a tight labor market and turmoil in commercial real estate weigh on the economy. In the Partnership’s forecast, the region is projected to add 57,600 jobs, returning to a more sustainable pace after record job growth post-pandemic. Houston added nearly 200,000 more jobs than it did before the pandemic as of October 2023.  “The Houston region has been running at a sprint ever since emerging from the pandemic. So, while growth will slow down next year, Houston’s economy remains resilient,” Partnership Chief Economist Patrick Jankowski said.  According to the forecast, job losses in 2024 will occur in construction, finance and insurance, information, and real estate – industries impacted by higher interest rates, tighter lending standards and ongoing labor shortages. There is a growing consensus among economists that the U.S. will skirt a recession next year after the long-awaited recession never materialized this year. According to the Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of business and academic economists, they placed the probability of a recession within the next year at 48 percent, the first time it was below 50 percent since 2022. But there is concern that events beyond the U.S. Federal Reserve’s control, such us geopolitics, could still trigger a recession. Houston’s economy is directly tied to the national economy and will almost certainly follow the U.S. into any recession. A sector-by-sector breakdown of the jobs forecast and the factors impacting each industry can be found in the full report.

In this episode of Bayou Business Download, Partnership Chief Economist Patrick Jankowski discusses what the latest American Community Survey, released by the U.S. Census Bureau, tells us about our region and how it has transformed over the years.       Bayou Business Download is presented exclusively by: