AUSTIN -- At Texas Workforce Solutions, Gary Crayton is searching for a job in health care.
“There is a lot of competition out there,” Crayton said. “That can be frustrating at times.”
Like many job seekers, Crayton has been searching for months and is hopeful that 2012 will be a good year.
Experts say the job market is promising.
According to the Texas Workforce Commission, Austin’s unemployment rate is 6.6 percent. It is well below the 8.6 percent national average recently reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Jason Schenker, president of Prestige Economics, said certain sectors have anchored Austin’s economy. Some of those sectors could grow in 2012.
“There is a lot more stability to the local Austin economy than to other parts of the country,” Schenker said. “We have the government here, the university here, and also the tech industry.”
At Austin’s Manpower, however, they have not yet seen the spike in job growth just yet.
Recruiter Rayford Williams said some employers are still crunching their finances, and that the market has not been so hot.
“Everybody is waiting until after the first of the year to see what their budgets are, to see what their true need is for employment,” Williams said.
He said the picture for 2012 should be a lot clearer by late February or early March.
