Economic recovery dashboard
The following data is being tracked to monitor the effect of COVID-19 on our regional economy and its recovery. Please note that this page is updated as data is released. These releases vary in frequency, lag time and many other factors.
Overview
This dashboard is intended to be complimentary to public health and other dashboards.
- Travis County
- Williamson County
- Hays County
- Bastrop County
- Capital Area Council of Governments: COVID-19 Action & Economic Development
- Texas Tribune: Coronavirus in Texas
Business cycle index
The Business Cycle Index summarizes movements in locally measured payroll employment, the unemployment rate, inflation-adjusted wages, and inflation-adjusted retail sales. The indexes are weighted so that movements in the index represent underlying co-movements in the indicators and thus the underlying state of the economy and illustrate each metro’s patterns of recessions and expansions.
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Jobs & employment
Monthly estimates of nonfarm payroll jobs by metropolitan area and unemployment rates by county and metropolitan area are usually released by the Texas Workforce Commission on the third Friday of the month.
Monthly change in nonfarm payroll jobs
Payroll jobs in Austin increased by 1.6% from April to May. Texas increased by 2.0% and the nation by 1.9%. Austin has fared better than 40 of the top 50 metros based on year-over-year change.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Current Employment Statistics
New/lost jobs by industry
Austin’s leisure and hospitality industry regained 15,100 jobs in May, but employment stands at 62% of its pre-pandemic level.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Current Employment Statistics
Unemployment rate
In the Great Recession, the highest seasonally adjusted unemployment rate attained in Austin was 7.5% and rates over 7% prevailed for 12 months. The number unemployed in Austin is estimated at 132,803 in May.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
Unemployment insurance claims
Available substate UI claims data is not directly comparable to state and national initial UI claims data. See TWC link below for more information.
New online job ads
Published postings decreased by 15.4% to 22,122 in the period April 14, 2020 to May 13, 2020.
Source: The Conference Board-Burning Glass Help Wanted OnLine™ Publication Series (Austin Chamber)
Transportation
Travelers are cautious as they are choosing to work and stay at home. This has had a profound and immediate effect on usage of public, air and road transit.
Weekly transaction trends 183-A toll road
Transactions on 183A dropped 50% after stay at home requirements were instituted and has slowly started to rise as restrictions have eased. This trend is similar across all CTRMA roads.
Micromobility (e.g., scooters) trips
Micromobility trips shows the level of mobility in the city's densest areas such as Downtown & the Domain. Since the stay at home orders were instituted, trips dropped into the teens.
Source: City of Austin
Mobility index
Requests for directions in Apple maps on July 5, 2020 reflect a 16% decrease in driving requests, and a 61% decrease in transit requests, compared to the index base period of January 13, 2020.
Source: Apple.
Community mobility
The data shows how visitors to (or time spent in) categorized places change compared to baseline days. A baseline day represents a normal value for that day of the week. The baseline day is the median value from the 5‑week period Jan. 3-Feb. 6, 2020.
Source: Google.
ABIA total passengers
Total passenger traffic ABIA in April is down 92% from what it was one year ago. The ABIA schedule report (flights loaded for sale to customers) for July indicates that seats are down 55% compared to July 2019.
Real estate
The longer term impacts on real estate (across every asset class) are hard to predict but short-term impacts could soon be visible across the following data sets.
Commercial vacancy rates
The vacancy rate is the percentage of the total amount of physically vacant space divided by the total amount of existing inventory. Under construction space is not included.
Source: Costar Group
Home sales
May home sales are 29% below the number attained in May of last year.
New privately owned housing units authorized by permits
In 2019, a total of 32,025 housing units were authorized by building permits. Among the top 50 metros, Austin ranked 6th for total units permitted and 1st for permits per capita. Through May, 2020 units permitted are 30% above 2019.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Sales tax & consumer spending
Sales tax allocations represent the total dollars returned to a local sales taxing city, county, special purpose district or transit authority by the Comptroller's office for their local sales tax collection. Allocation amounts are dependent upon the timing and accuracy of taxpayers' returns, but generally represent taxes collected on sales made two months or more prior to the allocation payment.
City of Austin sales tax allocations
The City of Austin's sales tax allocations for June are 20% lower than the June of last year.
Consumer spending
In Austin, as of July 1, total credit card/debit card spending by consumers is 5% below the level of January 4-31, 2020.
Source: Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker (Harvard University).