Employers have cut over 16,000 jobs in Texas this year in mass layoffs brought on by bankruptcies or cost-cutting decisions to close offices and operations, according to notices filed with the Texas Workforce Commission.
Despite that seemingly large number, the total cuts since the beginning of the year amount to only about half of Texas’ typical monthly jobs gain. The state has recorded job growth for 29 consecutive months, including over 26,000 new positions in July.
The job cut total comes from WARN notices filed with TWC. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, passed by Congress in 1988, requires businesses with over 100 full-time workers to provide at least 60 days advance notice when laying off 50 people or more at a single employment site.
The most recent companies to announce layoffs include two with operations in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Freedom Graphic Systems told TWC it will close its Grand Prairie location later this year, putting 59 people out of work beginning in November. Holiday Inn Club Vacations is shuttering a call center in Pantego in Tarrant County in October that employs 56 people.
The biggest single layoffs this year — both involving around 1,000 workers — came from retail giant Walmart and consulting firm Genpact.
In March, Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart said it was eliminating 1,047 jobs at an e-commerce fulfillment center in Fort Worth amid a nationwide series of cutbacks and consolidations. The Westport Parkway facility opened in 2013 and was among Walmart’s first dedicated to filling online orders.
Two months earlier, consultancy group Genpact cut 964 jobs at its Richardson office when a client contract ended in late March. The New York-headquartered firm employs over 100,000 people and provides data, artificial intelligence and technology services to about 800 clients.
Other notable layoffs occurred with bankruptcy filings by trucking company Yellow Corp. and retailer David’s Bridal. Both said they would displace more than 700 workers each across Texas.
Facing mounting losses that even a massive pandemic-era federal loan couldn’t stave off, the nearly 100-year-old Yellow freight company filed for bankruptcy in early August to wind down its business in what it called an “orderly” way. It employed 30,000 people nationwide.
David’s Bridal, one of the nation’s largest wedding gown retailers, sought bankruptcy protection in April for the second time in five years. It had 25 stores in Texas at the time, with plans to close 13 of those and reduce jobs at 11 others, according to its TWC filings.
Asset manager Cion Investment Corp. rescued the chain from shutting down in July but scaled back the business, keeping about two-thirds of the store’s 300 locations open and retaining about 7,000 of the company’s 10,000 employees. The David’s Bridal website now shows 18 stores in Texas.
Two other employers eliminated more than 800 jobs each.
In May, Texas Vista Medical Center in San Antonio closed and put over 800 people out of work. The 325-bed facility, formerly known as Southwest General Hospital, was operated by Dallas-based Steward Health Care.
From January through March, trucking company Ryder System Inc. laid off 801 workers after losing a contract at an Applied Materials semiconductor plant in Austin.
The job cuts were “due to a customer’s changing business needs,” Ryder spokeswoman Anne M. Hendricks told FreightWaves at the time. Applied Materials expanded its manufacturing operation in Austin and moved logistics and transportation functions in-house or to other vendors.
WARN notices don’t capture all of the nation’s job cuts. The law was intended to give workers and communities ample time to prepare for large influxes of people collecting unemployment or seeking retraining.
Companies with nationwide footprints, such as Dallas-based AT&T and Westlake-based Charles Schwab, have publicly said they’ll reduce their workforces this year to cut spending but haven’t disclosed specifics.
The bigger picture
In August, U.S.-based employers announced 75,151 job cuts — a 217% increase from the month before and 267% higher than in the same month in 2022, according to tracking by Chicago outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.
That brought the year-to-date nationwide job cut total to 557,057 — a 210% increase from the same eight-month tally last year. It’s the highest January-August total since the pandemic in 2020, when nearly 2 million layoffs were recorded.
“Job openings are falling, and American workers are more reluctant to leave their positions right now,” said Andrew Challenger, the company’s senior vice president. “The job market is resetting after the pandemic and post-pandemic hiring frenzy.”
Twenty-five of 30 industries Challenger tracks have seen layoff increases this year, with automotive, government, entertainment/leisure, industrial goods and utilities being the exceptions. Warehousing led all industries in August with 32,123 cuts, primarily on the Yellow Corp. bankruptcy.
Technology sector job cuts lead all industries this year with over 150,000 positions eliminated. Retailers (55,755), health care (48,865) and financial firms (43,341) are the next hardest-hit industries.
“Health care, particularly hospitals, are undergoing a lot of turmoil with staffing and trying to remain profitable while delivering high levels of care,” Challenger said.
Hiring projections also have slowed nationally. In August, employers announced plans to hire 7,744 workers, the lowest monthly total since November 2020, according to Challenger. Job additions through the first eight months of this year are down 83% from the same period a year ago.
Brighter in Texas?
In Texas, however, veteran Waco economist Ray Perryman sees a brighter outlook. He projects the Lone Star State will net 1.3 million new jobs by 2027, pushing employment over the 15 million mark.
“Texas continues to shatter records for new jobs,” he wrote in an Aug. 16 post on his firm’s website. “The expansion has been broad-based, both in terms of industries and geographic areas. Our latest projections call for notable employment gains over the next five years.”
He expects professional and business services to account for nearly 20% of new jobs, with those workers providing legal, accounting, architectural, engineering, design, computer and consulting services to companies.
Health care, social services, accommodation and food services, retail and transportation also are expected to see sizeable gains, Perryman said.
“As with other highly developed economies, Texas employment growth is concentrated in services-oriented industries, but manufacturing is also expanding at a healthy pace,” he wrote, noting an almost 7% increase in manufacturing jobs over the next five years.
“The dynamic Texas economy is certainly not immune to national and global challenges, but the state is well positioned to generate opportunities across a broad spectrum of industries,” said Perryman, who has studied the state’s economic growth for over 40 years.
