Unemployment for city, county keeps improving

Dalondo Moultrie The Seguin Gazette

As the economy continues its climb back from the ravages of COVID-19, Guadalupe County’s and Seguin’s unemployment rates continue to ebb.

While it’s not happening as quickly as some would like, continuing to plug at it is the best way to lower the rate and fill jobs, Workforce Solutions Alamo CEO Adrian Lopez said. Workforce continues to help connect prospective employees and employers to chip away at the unemployment rate, he said.

“We’re still working with them,” Lopez said. “It’s a process, not a magic wand. We keep at it. We bring thousands of job seekers still looking for employment to be matched with those employers.”

In recently released jobs numbers, Workforce Solutions revealed that for August the region experienced a 4.8% unemployment rate. Seguin’s rate was 4.5% and Guadalupe County rested at 4.1%, Lopez said.

The Alamo region includes Guadalupe, Atascosa, Bandera, Bexar, Comal, Frio, Gillespie, Karnes, Kendall, Kerr, McMullen, Medina and Wilson counties.

Unemployment before the pandemic hovered around the 3% area, Lopez said. It increased to about 13% around March and April of last year and stayed around 8% or 9% throughout Summer 2020, he said.

Current stats look pretty good, considering, Lopez said.

These are “(r)eally great numbers in terms of where things are today and where they’re headed,” he said. “We’re still not at pre-pandemic levels but we’re pretty close to it.”

Trajectory for unemployment in the area has trended downward in recent months, Lopez said. For instance, Guadalupe County for the month of July was at 4.6% unemployment, he said.

“Guadalupe County has about 3,400 people that are actively looking for a job,” Lopez said. “They’re in the labor force but they’re still looking. Out of the 82,593 people that are in the labor force in Guadalupe County, 79,183 of those are actually employed.”

In Seguin, about 13,727 people make up the labor force and about 13,109 of them are employed, Lopez said. The city’s unemployment rate shrank a bit from the July rate of 5.1%, he said.

The region, county and city are faring better than the nation, when it comes to unemployment rates.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, the country’s unemployment for August declined by .2% to 5.2%. The number of unemployed people edged down 8.4 million nationally, following a large decrease in July, according to the bureau.

“Both measures are down considerably from their highs at the end of the February-April 2020 recession,” the website stated. “However, they remain above their levels prior to the coronavirus pandemic.”

Before the pandemic, the unemployment rate nationally was about 3.5% and about 5.7 million people were without work in February 2020, according to the information.

Some employers in the region are struggling to find workers, Lopez said. He encouraged them to keep searching because the numbers show job seekers are out there, he said.

Alamo region’s labor force has grown in recent months and Workforce Solutions wants to bridge the gap between those who want work and those who have it, Lopez said.

“We would encourage all these people who are looking for work to look for opportunities to work with employers,” he said. “Over the last eight, nine months, we’ve worked with close to 500 employers at employment events.”

That work won’t stop any time soon.

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