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2016 Texas Economy: Three Things to Watch2016 Texas Economy: Three Things to WatchBryan PopePope
2015-11-19T06:00:00ZEconomy
Employment

​On this week's Real Estate Red Zone podcast, our chief economist, Dr. Jim Gaines, talked about some of the challenges the Texas economy will be up against in 2016. He mentions three things in particular to keep an eye on: the energy sector, the national economy and the value of the dollar.

If you haven't listened to Jim's insights, I highly recommend it. It's a good listen (click here and play the first episode).

In the meantime, here are a few of his key points.

Energy
"The job losses in the energy sector have not stopped and, in fact, are probably going to pick up this coming year. There's already been an initial wave of job losses — service companies have cut back, and Schlumberger, Baker-Hughes and Halliburton have announced layoffs. What doesn't make the headlines was that that industry — or that group of companies — was really dominated by a whole bunch of small companies, from just a couple of employees to about 30, 40 or 50. Those companies are fragile in this market setting, and a lot of jobs will be lost there."

National Economy
"Texas is not an independent country. We're part of the United States, and if the U.S. economy is prospering and doing well in other industry groups — manufacturing or business services, or what have you — that buoys up the state. Fortunately, the national economy is still chugging along at a pace that, at least for the past five or six years, has been a slow to modest level of growth. But at least it's positive and moving forward. That's helping to fuel employment growth here that's not energy-related."

Value of the Dollar
"[The dollar] being so strong is really hurting our exports, and Texas is a number one or two state for exporting in our country. A lot of our industrial and investment dollars are based on exports and exporting activity."

2015-11-19T06:00:00Zhttps://www.recenter.tamu.edu/info/blog/?Item=12

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