Where The Jobs Are: Chamber Releases Austin Employment Snapshot

AUSTIN, TX — Austin Chamber of Commerce officials on Thursday released their Austin Jobs Postings Report, an exhaustively researched analysis of the employment market last year in the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos metropolitan statistical area.

The snapshot yields an appraisal of the job market at the end of 2017 while concurrently providing an outlook for this year given particular trends. The report also breaks down where the jobs are by sector via a study of job postings while identifying companies likeliest to hire workers this year.

Here are some highlights, as provided by the Austin Chamber:

• About 50 percent of all Available Job Postings for 2017 required an Associate's degree or more as the level of education needed for entry into the job posted. About 41 percent required a Bachelor's degree, and more than half of these do not require any work experience nor on-the-job training. 28 percent required a high school diploma or equivalent and most of these also required relevant work experience or on-the-job training.13 percent of posted jobs required no formal education credential but a majority would need some short-term on-the-job training.
• 37,400 Available Job Openings, similar to the same time period last year. 37,400 Available Job Postings during December 2017, similar to postings in December 2016. Both Computer and Mathematical Occupations and Office and Administrative Support Occupations saw a decline of 450 or more year-to-year Available Job Postings.
• Education, Training and Library Occupations saw an increase of 900 or more year-to-year postings, mostly for Teacher Assistants, Preschool Teachers, Elementary School Teachers, Secondary School Teachers and Special Education Teachers. Employers such as Austin ISD, Pflugerville ISD and Leander ISD have posted positions related to Education, Training and Library Occupations. Austin ISD started to increase their postings in the last quarter of 2017.
• The share of New Job Postings compared to Available Job Postings declined in December 2017. This means that New Job Postings accounted for only 40 percent of Available Job Postings in December 2017. It had been above 44 percent since December 2016.
• Demand for Tech talent slowed down in December. Computer and Mathematical Occupations accounts for a lower share, 16 percent, of all Available Job Postings. This is about 500 less postings compared to the same time period last year.
• According to the Texas Workforce Commission, the Austin MSA reported an unemployment rate of 2.7% or 31,300 unemployed in November 2017, continuing signs of an increasingly tight labor market.

The report also identifies companies that may be in a hiring mode given announcements of related to new location or expansion plans in the Austin MSA. The firms' collective expansion plans represent creation of some 2,350 plus jobs, according to the report.

Expanded-minded firms in the region identified by the chamber include:

• Vandelay Education (not a subsidiary of the fictitious firm on Seinfeld, but a Leander-based firm located at 901 Crystal Falls Parkway).
• Smarter Sorting, a household hazardous waste concern.
• Monolith Semiconductor Inc.
• Kendra Scott Design, a jewelry, home décor and beauty products seller.
• Josco Products, dealing in contamination control.
• Indeed, the search engine.
• GenXComm, a technology firm.
• Flasher Equipment, a pavement marking and traffic control company.
• Duo Security, a cyber security.
• Dosh, a cash back app that searches all available coupons, promo codes, and rebates and gives users cash back from thousands of restaurants, retail stores, hotels, and more. .

Additionally, the chamber report outlines new location announcements from: Wisetek (Cork, Ireland), Farsoon Technologies (Hunan, China), Carnegie Tecnologies (San Antonio, TX), Dailey Electric (College Station, TX), Francis Renewables (Tulsa, OK), Lobster Ink (New York, NY), Sage Green Life (Chicago, IL), Smaller Earth (Stamford, CT) and Walmart Technology (Bentonville, AR).

The chart and table below lists the available unique ads in major occupation groups from Nov. 14, 2017, to Dec. 13, 2017, a mid-monthly time frame closely associated with federal jobs numbers, the chamber noted:

Source: The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine ® (HWOL)

Another chart found in the report illustrates job postings per industry at a granular level, yielding further insight into possible hiring. All told, there were about 37,400 Available Job Postings during the December 2017 monthly reporting period, similar to postings in December 2016, according to the report. About 6,100 (16 percent) of the Available Job Postings during the December reporting period fell under Computer and Mathematical Occupations. 40 percent or 15,100 are New Job Postings, an 8.9 percent decrease compared to December 2016, the research found.

The Major Occupational Groups that saw the largest increases in the volume of Available Job Postings compared to December 2016 are Education, Training and Library Occupations, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupationsand Architecture and Engineering Occupations, according to the report.

Not all sectors were bullish, though. Computer and Mathematical Occupations, Office and Administrative Support Occupations, Sales and Related Occupations and Management Occupations saw a decline of 100 or more year-to-year Available Job Postings, researchers found.

The chart below lists the top 20 unique available job postings in the Austin – Round Rock – San Marcos MSA from Nov. 14, 2017 to Dec. 13, 2017, as reported by the Austin Chamber:

Registered nurses, teacher assistants, elementary school teachers, light truck or delivery services drivers and first-line supervisors of food preparation and serving workers all saw a 100 or more increase in year-to-year postings, according to the chamber's findings. Conversely, web developers, laborers and freight, stock, and material movers, hand, customer service representatives, computer systems analysts and network and computer systems administrators had a 100 or more decrease in year-to-year postings, according to the report.

The chart below lists the top 20 unique available job postings and its hiring difficulty in the Austin – Round Rock – San Marcos MSA from Nov. 14, 2017, to Dec. 13, 2017:

Source: Wanted Technologies and the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Another chart lists the top 20 unique available job postings under the category of Computer and Mathematical Occupations in the Austin – Round Rock – San Marcos MSA from Nov. 14, 2017, to Dec. 13, 2017:

Information Technology Project Managers and Computer and Information Research Scientists saw the largest year-to-year increase in Available Job Postings, according to the analysis. Meanwhile, Web Developers, Network and Computer Systems Administrators and Computer Systems Analysts saw the largest decline in year-to-year Available Job Postings. Computer and Mathematical Occupations saw an overall decline of about 8 percent or 530 Available Job Postings when compared to December 2016.

The exhaustive report also studies the local hiring scale across various sectors, which views the difficulty-to-fill indicator on market conditions. The scale calculates a score for each position an employer is trying to fill. Various factors affected the hiring scale score, including: available candidates; overall demand for employers for people in the position; location; occupation; local unemployment rates; job site source; offered pay level; and more.

Given that reckoning, the hiring scale scores jobs from 1 to 99 based on their projected difficulty-to-recruit measures. Companies such as Apple, Inc., Merck and Booz Allen Hamilton posted 40 or more year-to-year increase in postings under this category, researchers noted.

The study found that compared nationwide, the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA has a lower hiring difficulty for Computer and Mathematical Occupations. The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell MSA, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington MSA, Boston-Cambridge-Newton MSA, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington MSA and the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood MSA have a higher hiring difficulty in this occupational category when compared to the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos MSA, the findings indicate.

The report detailed the top 20 healthcare job postings, devising yet another chart to illustrate:

Richly detailed, the chamber's report also focuses on top hard skills in demand, top certifications in demand and ranks the top employers in terms of ad volume. To see the full report, click here.

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