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About this visual Texas Workforce Commission / BLS

A sector with 15% of Texas jobs supplied 45% of its net annual job gain.

Body / subject: Texas employment

Data / source: Texas Workforce Commission press release, Oct 16, 2026: Texas nonagricultural wage and salary employment, seasonally adjusted

First published: date not yet reconciled · Source release Oct 16, 2026 · Updated Oct 17, 2026

Sep 2025–Sep 2026 · September 2026 preliminary

Supersector job counts from TWC’s Oct 16, 2026 release (September 2026 preliminary, August 2026 revised), checked against BLS CES: September 2025 values match exactly. Share of net gain divides each sector’s over-the-year change by the net +154,300; gross gains sum the eight growing sectors (171,100). Prior-September shares use current BLS estimates. Payroll jobs by job location, not people. TWC’s comparison with the national rate is attributed to TWC.

Read the explanation
Texas jobs · September 2026 (preliminary)

Nearly half of Texas’ net job gain over the past year came from one sector

Texas added a net 154,300 jobs from September 2025 to September 2026 (+1.08%). Professional and business services added 69,400 of them, 45% of the net gain, while holding 15% of the state’s jobs. September itself was a down month: Texas lost a net 11,100 jobs from August.

Takeaway: one sector supplied 45% of Texas’ net job gain over the year ending September 2026, compared with no more than 27% in any September from 2021 to 2025.

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45%of the net job gain
(69,400 of 154,300)
15%of all Texas jobs
(2,192,000)

Professional and business services. Measured against gross gains in the eight growing sectors (171,100), its share is 40.6%.

Professional and business services’ share of September-to-September net job growth

Sep–Sep, seasonally adjusted. 2021–2025 are current BLS estimates; *2026 is preliminary. 2020 omitted (net loss).

September alone (Aug → Sep)−11,100
Private sector, over the year+160,400
Government, over the year−6,100

TWC says Texas’ 1.1% annual growth rate outpaced the national rate by 0.8 percentage points.

SOURCE: Texas Workforce Commission, “Texas Annual Growth Rate Outpaces Nation as Labor Force Adds 15,800,” Oct 16, 2026, Texas nonagricultural wage and salary employment, seasonally adjusted (with BLS Current Employment Statistics). Sep 2026 preliminary, Aug 2026 revised; all estimates subject to revision. Sep 2025 values match BLS series SMS48000000000000001 and supersector series. Prior Septembers: BLS CES, retrieved Oct 17, 2026. Payroll jobs counted by job location, not people.
Local Insights analysis of TWC/BLS data.
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