Archive for the Northwest News Category

2018 is going to be the year Houston fully emerges from its economic downturn, and it appears to be doing so at full tilt. The Texas Workforce Commission’s most recent release of labor statistics posted Houston set an all-time record for April job growth, at 22,600 jobs, for a YTD net gain of 41,300 jobs. Unemployment dropped from 4.6% to 4.2%. This sets Houston’s employment at a record high of 3,097,500, an impressive comeback considering the energy industry shed 19,000 jobs and Houston suffered negative job growth in both 2015 and 2016. These are not all Harvey related jobs either, because historically, hurricanes only affect the economy for about 6 months after the storm. This is Houston in full economic recovery, which

One of the Grow Northwest’s strategic initiatives is Safety & Security. Public safety and low crime rates are key ingredients to the economic vibrancy and health of a community. Through the assistance of Constable Mark Herman’s Precinct 4 office, we have been tracking crime statistics in northwest Houston in four categories, aggravated assault, burglary of business, robbery of business and burglary of a motor vehicle(BMV). A recent compilation of this data is demonstrating an encouraging trend. In 3 of 4 categories, crime has been trending downward since 2015. The one outlier, BMVs, which is experiencing exponential growth nationwide, showed a 34% decrease in calls for service in Q1 2018 from its peak in Q2 2017. Of course, the intent is

At the 2018 Economic Outlook Forum Patrick Jankowski, with the Greater Houston Partnership and Bobby Lieb, from the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce delivered the state of economies for the greater Houston area and the Houston Northwest area, respectively. With newly adjusted employment data from the Texas Workforce Commission, Patrick revealed the Greater Houston Area suffered a small recession in 2015 and 2016, with minor net job losses for both years. In 2017, the Greater Houston area gained back 63,000 jobs. However, the majority of those job gains were in the lower wage service and retail sectors and are not considered adequate replacements for the higher wage energy sector job losses suffered from the prior 3 years. The good news