Texas flexes jobs muscles

TEXAS – The Texas jobs juggernaut rolls on, according to Forbes’ The Best Cities For Jobs 2013 list. Growth has not only been steady, it has been widely spread across the state.

Texas boasts four major metros in the top ten, led by Fort Worth-Arlington at No. 4, Houston at No. 5, Dallas-Plano-Irving at No. 6, and Austin-Round Rock at No. 10. San Antonio comes in at No. 12.

The metro areas have more jobs than they did a decade ago — often a lot more. Since 2001, employment in Houston has expanded 20 percent; in Fort Worth, it’s up roughly 16 percent; Dallas, 11 percent; Austin, a remarkable 26.5 percent; and San Antonio, 18.4 percent.

The power of the energy sector can be seen in smaller metro areas. Oil-rich Midland, places first on Forbes’ list of smaller metro areas (those with less than 150,000 jobs) and also first overall among the country’s 398 metropolitan areas. Nipping at its heels in second place in both categories is Odessa. Corpus Christi came in at No. 4 on the medium-size cities list.