Continuing improvement in the regional economy supports the prospects of a mild recovery. Notably, Texas real GDP increased at a 3.3 percent annualized pace in the third quarter. In addition, total nonfarm employment increased in both October and November and fell slightly in December. Overall, from September to December, jobs were essentially unch...Read More
Signs of a global recovery continue to appear around the world, particularly in the U.S. and emerging markets. Increases in output and international trade have allowed growth prospects for major economies to be revised up...Read More
Houston at year-end showed clear signs of sustained economic improvement: Job losses continued to shrink, the unemployment rate fell slightly and the local purchasing managers were increasingly optimistic...Read More
The regional economy experienced broad-based improvement in recent weeks. Most notably, labor markets appear to be stabilizing. This is consistent with the regional economy being at a turning point, with output at low levels but growing...Read More
While emerging markets enjoyed robust growth in the third quarter, private demand is still lagging in the advanced economies, whose positive growth was mainly due to government spending and net exports...Read More
As 2009 closes, we find the economy continuing to steadily recover from recession. However, the slow and sometimes uncertain pace at which the recovery is taking place inspires only cautious optimism...Read More
Houston continues to show signs of moving out of the recent U.S. recession, although at a slower pace than the rest of the country. The local job market is not healing as fast as the U.S., with monthly percentage losses in payrolls getting smaller each month but remaining larger than comparable national figures...Read More
With the close of 2009 approaching, the overall national economic picture remains much the same as the previous month. Many major data releases over the past two weeks indicate that economic activity continues to pick up, but some indicators suggest that we still have some way to go in the journey toward stability...Read More
Regional economic conditions are weak but improving. Employment fell again in September, and a benchmark revision of Texas jobs data for the first half of the year resulted in additional payroll declines of 63,500 since December 2008. State GDP and personal income data, however, suggest that economic activity may have bottomed out in the second qua...Read More
While the economic outlook has generally improved, there remain some causes for concern. Early third quarter GDP shows some countries growing robustly, while there are still negative signs for others. Though some financial indicators show dramatic improvement, credit remains tight and most central banks have yet to unwind monetary stimulus. Signs o...Read More
