Texas' unemployment rate dipped to 7 percent in March as hotels and restaurants increased hiring.
The Texas Workforce Commission announced Friday that the state added 10,900 jobs in March. A downward revision in the number of jobs created in February, though, boosted March's results. The state originally reported payrolls grew by 27,900 jobs in February, but now says a net 19,900 jobs were created — a reduction of 8,000 jobs.
The state's unemployment rate in July was the worst it's been in nearly a quarter of a century.
The state had a net gain of 29,300 jobs last month, yet the jobless rate rose to 8.4 percent from 8.2 percent in June, the Texas Workforce Commission reported Friday. The rate was 8.1 percent in July 2010.
The last time unemployment was this high was 24 years ago — July 1987 — during the state's oil and real estate bust.
Read the entire article here.
We are frequently asked questions involving overpayment of unemployment from the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC):
Question: If I am working for a temporary agency, what do I need to do to make sure I can obtain unemployment benefits when the work ends?
Short Answer: Ask for a new assignment right away and wait 3 business days before applying for benefits.
Explanation:
If you are considering working for a temporary help agency, you should know that special rules could affect whether you receive unemployment benefits.
According to a recent article in The Monitor, Cameron County shed 1,300 jobs and experienced the worst unemployment level of any county in Texas.
Texas Workforce Commission data (PDF) released Friday shows the Brownsville-Harlingen metro area, which covers Cameron County, edged out the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metro area, which covers Hidalgo County, to claim the unfortunate title. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission’s unemployment rate was 11.9 percent, just one-tenth of one percent lower than Brownsville-Harlingen’s 12 percent unemployment rate.
You can read the entire article in The Monitor.
You can view all the March unemployment data from the Texas Workforce Commission here.
You were disqualified for Texas unemployment benefits. Now what? How can you get re-qualified for benefits? Here's your answers:
If the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) disqualifies you from receiving unemployment insurance benefits on a prior claim because of the reason for your job separation or for other reasons, you may be able to close the disqualification through work or wages after you do all of the following:
To receive benefits after closing a disqualification, you must have a qualifying separation from your last job or fulfill the work and earning requirements described above while you are working at a part-time job.
The TWC will not pay you benefits for the time between the beginning of the disqualification and the time that you meet the requirements to close the disqualification.
You can use work or wages from most types of “employment” to close the disqualification. However, the Texas Unemployment Compensation Act excludes several types of employment from its definition of employment for the purposes of removing a previous disqualification. These include:
Businesses are hiring again, according to a recent express news article reporting on local Federal Reserve statistics. According to the report, the number of employed in San Antonio last month reached its highest level in almost 21/2 years. The report stated that the San Antonio metropolitan area added 5,800 jobs last month, bringing the total nonfarm payroll to 852,900.
Employment in the San Antonio area is accelerating — growing at an annualized clip of 2.8 percent so far this year, up from 1.4 percent in 2010. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which is calculated with different data than that used for determining the size of the area's payroll, actually rose to 7.4 percent last month from 7.3 percent in both February 2011 and March 2010. The uptick may reflect more people resuming their search for work.
Texas, meanwhile, added 37,200 jobs last month, dropping the state's unemployment rate to 8.1 percent — the lowest since July.
"This is not a black holiday; it is a people's holiday," -- Coretta Scott King, Nov. 2, 1983. 
A Baptist minister, King became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. There, he expanded American values to include the vision of a color blind society, and established his reputation as one of the greatest orators in American history.
In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other nonviolent means. By the time of his assassination in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and Congressional Gold Medal in 2004.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986.
The Texas Workforce Commission ("TWC") has published the unemployment tax rates for 2011. The minimum tax rate increases from .72 percent to .78 percent. The maximum tax rate will drop from 8.60 percent to 8.25 percent. The average unemployment tax rate will increase from 1.83 to 2.03 percent and the average experience tax rate will be 1.96 percent.
Source: TWC Press Release
Here are some of the most interesting employment law related articles and blog entries I came across in the last seven days.
If you come across an article that you think should make the weekly round-up, drop me a line at chris[at]mckinneylaw.net.
How long is long enough? 
How long should the country offer unemployment benefits to the folks caught in the grip of the downturn? How long before those benefits, desperately needed by many, actually become a hurdle to people finding work?
The Orlando Sentinel has an interesting article on this topic this week discussing this issue. Give it a read.
So what do you think? Given the state of the economy, how long should be keep extending benefits? Are we doing more harm than good or are we standing by our fellow Americans in a time of great trial? Would love to see your comments.
The number of jobless claims filed for unemployment benefits fell last week to 460,000 nationally..jpg)
Unfortunately, the number of claims is still higher than what analysts had been predicting.
The AP notes that while this indicates that the economy is finally starting to grow again, things are still very painful out there for a significant number of workers. They go on to state that this recession is the worst the country has faced since the 1930s.
Source: AP News
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