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
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 2.2% from July to August. Texas increased by 0.9% and the nation by 1.0%. Austin has fared best among the top 50 metros based on year-over-year change.
Source: Texas Workforce Commission, Current Employment Statistics
New/lost jobs by industry
After regaining over 35,200 lost jobs in May and June, Austin’s leisure and hospitality industry lost 3,300 jobs in July, but gained 2,000 back in August, and employment stands at 76% 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 over 70,000 in August.
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 increased by 0.4% to 25,402 in the period July 14, 2020 to August 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 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. 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 September 9, 2020 reflect a 3% increase in driving requests, and a 44% 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 July is down 75% from what it was one year ago. The ABIA schedule report (flights loaded for sale to customers) for September indicates that seats are down 58% compared to September 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
July home sales are 21% above the number attained in July of last year. Year-to-date sales are down 0.2%.
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 July 2020 units permitted are 29% 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.
Sales tax allocations
For these four major taxing jurisdiction combined, sales tax allocations are up 2.4% year-to-date.
City of Austin sales tax allocations
The City of Austin's sales tax allocations for August are 1% higher than August of last year.
Consumer spending
In Austin, as of August 23, total credit card/debit card spending by consumers is 3.5% above the level of January 4-31, 2020.
Source: Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker (Harvard University).
Restaurant traffic
Restaurant traffic for the week ending September 9 is down 38% in Austin, 27% statewide and 36% nationally, compared to the same week of 2019.
Source: Open Table.