Houston, home to more than 10,700 manufacturing facilities, now has more manufacturing jobs than any other city in the United States, making it number one on a very important list. The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the United States Department of Labor reports that total non-farm employment in the Houston-Sugar Land Baytown metropolitan area was 2,499,900, up from 81,100 jobs from March 2006 to March 2007. Production in the Greater Houston area added 7,300 of these jobs, increasing at a rate of 3.3. This growth is impressive, given that at the national level, employment in the manufacturing sector fell by 0.7 percent over the same twelve months.
With 225,732 manufacturing jobs, Houston currently accounts for 18.5 percent of all manufacturing activities in Texas. Leading manufacturers in terms of employment in Houston are the petroleum industry, plastic products and industrial organic chemicals in accordance with the business cycle index (BCI), published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. During the first part of this year, the Houston economy slowed down due to falling oil prices, but since March, the Houston economy has sharply increased again.
According to this study, Texas is becoming one of the most powerful manufacturing centers in the United States. Houston is a state leader and for four consecutive years in Industry Week magazine has been recognized as the World Medal Class Community for Manufacturing gold medal.
Given the strong competitive pressures created by an increasingly globalized market, Houston clearly has advantages such as a good location for distributing supplies and products with four deepwater ports, two major railways originating from Houston, and more than 1,100 trucking companies that travel the US the whole territory. Port of Houston is a complex with a wide range of public and private facilities with a length of 25 miles, located just a few hours drive from the Gulf of Mexico. The port ranks first in the United States in a seawater tunnel, second in the US in total tonnage and tenth in the world in total tonnage.
Another clear advantage for Houston is a good working pool. According to forecasts, by 2012, employment in the manufacturing industry will increase by 2.7 percent. However, with a population of over 5.3 million, Houston boasts a workforce of 2.7 million and provides a large skilled labor fund for employers. And in Houston, the workforce has every opportunity to study well with more than 100 enterprises and 530 vocational schools providing training in a variety of fields, including such diverse areas as plastics and tools, and die.
While many of the country's largest urban areas, such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco, continue to lag behind economic growth, Houston moves full steam locomotives. Fortunately, Houston has not encountered some difficulties in many other major cities, which may be associated with high housing costs, business overheads and taxes. Houston has fairly inexpensive undeveloped property, office space and production space, and housing expenses in the first quarter of 2007 were 25 percent lower than the national average and 43 percent lower than the average metro level. Houston also enjoys the lowest food prices among major metros, which is 16 percent below the national average.
The coast of Houston-Gulf has almost 40% of US power for basic petrochemical products, providing fast access to the largest resin manufacturers and the latest resin technologies. Although energy remains a hot area of growth, production in Houston continues to diversify, which is of great importance for further rapid job growth. We have 2,877 metal manufacturing companies providing 67,372 jobs and about 250 electronics manufacturing companies employing more than 20,000 people. Houston's electronic assembly companies are also vital components of the energy, aerospace, consumer, and medical segments of the economy. And more than 300 software companies provide jobs for more than 49,000 software professionals in the Houston area. With all the advantages of location, workforce and diversified production with business support, Houston is getting closer and closer to becoming a leading industrial and business city in the United States.
