Texas Jobs are Recession-Free

Anyone looking for a job in Texas (Click here) can take comfort in two new reports.

First, CNNMoney recently ranked the State of Texas as one of the Top Five Best States to Launch a Business. The state's reasonable tax structure, incentive funds and franchise tax exemption are all credited with helping small businesses grow.

Second, a new report from MSNBC.com and Moody's Economy.com announced that the Austin-Round Rock, Brownsville-Harlingen, Dallas-Plano-Irving, El Paso, Lubbock, McAllen-Edinburg-Pharr and San Antonio areas are among the first in the nation to begin recovering from the recession, as their economies have grown during the last six months.

That report is based on MSNBC and Moody's Adversity Index, which uses data on employment, industrial production, housing starts and home prices to place each state or metro area in one of four categories: expanding, at risk of recession, in recession or recovering. October is the first month this year that any American metro area has moved from in recession to recovery.

However, Texas as a whole continued to lose jobs last month as the state's unemployment rate slightly increased.

During September, Texas saw its unemployment rate increase from 8 percent to 8.2 percent, which is lower than the national unemployment rate of 9.8 percent. The state has not seen its unemployment rate decrease since April, when it went from 6.7 percent to 6.6 percent.

Texas had a total non-farm employment of 10,297,600 workers during September, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 10,342,300 workers during July and a 2.9 percent decrease from last year.