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
- Downtown Austin Alliance
- Capital Area Council of Governments: COVID-19 Action & Economic Development
- Texas Tribune: Coronavirus in Texas
Metro 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.
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
Seasonally adjusted jobs in Austin increased by 0.1% from January to February. Texas jobs fell by 0.2%, but jobs grew 0.3% nationally. Austin has regained 76% of the jobs lost in March and April.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Current Employment Statistics
Year-over-year change in nonfarm payroll jobs
Austin’s leisure and hospitality industry added jobs in 6 of the last 10 months. Over 52% of the 67,300 jobs lost in March and April have been regained and employment in the industry stands at 78% 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 70,448 in February.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission & Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Local Area Unemployment Statistics
Unemployment insurance claims
Available sub-state 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 in February 2021 are 14.8% higher than January and 12.3% below the level of one year ago.
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.
Daily transaction trends 183-A toll road
Transactions on 183A dropped more than 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. After stay at home orders were instituted, trips dropped dramatically.
Source: City of Austin
Mobility index
Requests for directions in Apple maps on March 9, 2021 reflect an 11% increase in driving requests, and a 36% 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 December is down 68% from what it was one year ago. The total for 2020 is 63% below 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
January home sales are 24% above the number attained in January of last year. In 2020, sales were up 8.8% over 2019.
New privately owned housing units authorized by permits
In 2019, a total of 32,025 housing units were authorized by building permits and Austin ranked 6th for total units permitted. With 40,875 units permitted, 2020 is 28% above 2019, and only Houston, Dallas, New York, and Phoenix saw more permits issues this year.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Sales tax & 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.
Sales tax allocations
For these four major taxing jurisdiction combined, 2020 sales tax allocations are up 0.9% over 2019. Year-to-date 2021 is 2.1% below 2020.
City of Austin sales tax allocations
The City of Austin's sales tax allocations for March are 8.9% below March of last year. Allocations for 2020 were 1.3% below 2019.
Consumer spending
In Austin, as of the week ending February 14, 2021 total credit card/debit card spending by consumers is 1.3% above the level of January 2020.
Source: Affinity Solutions via Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker (Harvard University).
Small businesses open
In Austin, as of February 22, the number of small businesses open (defined as having financial transactions) is 64% below the level of January 2020.
Source: Womply via Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker (Harvard University).
Restaurant traffic
Restaurant traffic for the week ending March 9, 2021 is down 26% in Austin, 13% statewide and 38% nationally, compared to the same week of 2020.
Source: Open Table.