Industry News: 

Welcome to a new age!

Nobody expected Houston to be here about 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately, Houston is being hit by a double whammy: COVID-19 & an oil price-war. Right up until about a week ago the Houston market was ON FIRE! Clients were busy refilling roles and employees were taking advantage of new job opportunities created by a great local & national economy. I wish I could predict what the next 30 days will look like, but I simply can’t. Some clients are putting their vacancies on hold, but most are still looking to review resumes as they truly need to hire additional staff. I don’t think we are going into a recession locally, but in the event we do, I do believe it will be brief.

I will not have any data to share about how this current situation will have impacted us until May. For the time being, we are continuing to talk to accounting & finance talent and make our clients aware of them. We will continue to work on the orders that we do have, knowing start dates may be delayed a bit. If we haven’t spoken in a while, I would love to catch up!

February / March Local Statistics:
– National Unemployment Rate: 4.0 (last year 3.7)
– Houston Unemployment Rate: 3.6 (last year 3.9)
– Labor Participation Rate: 63.4% – All-time high January 2000: 67.30%
– Manufacturing Index: 50.2
– Oil Rig Count: 790 (last year 1,048) – All-time high around 1900 in 2012!
– Price of Oil: 26.95 (last year 49.52)

Source: Economy at a Glance (https://www.houston.org/houston-data/economy-glance)

Stay tuned for my next newsletter in June and as always check http://www.dianedelgadolemaire.com for updates on new job openings!

Stay safe & be kind to one another!