Dallas is home to nearly half of the state’s high tech jobs.  This city has been dubbed the “silicone prairie” by some, and its rich and diverse economy has helped it become one of the US’s hotspots, even in a huge recession.  Dallas is also home to may other hot jobs sectors like IT, computing, high tech business, transportation, and finance.  The city has done a great job marketing itself to outside firms and has had multiple corporations relocate to the area to call the Dallas area home.

Its close proximity to the Fort Worth area gives Dallas much of the labor and business connections and resources that it needs to grow and become sustainable in a sour economic climate.  There are also various tax incentives given by the state of Texas for companies based in the DFW area to strike out and build themselves up using local labor and resources.  The attitude and stance that many locals have is certainly one of optimism.  There is a general feeling that Texas has been pretty effectively insulated against the large-scale job cuts that many other states are experiencing.

The Dallas area’s leisure and hospitality sectors are growing very quickly as well.  Much of the attitude of “everything’s bigger in Texas” is a reflection on the Dallas model of hotel and restaurant ownership.  These industries remain quite hot, though employment in these sectors has started to take a turn downward as the recession has drug on.  The unemployment rate in the Dallas area is far below the national average at about 7.5%.  This can be attributed to the diversity of the Dallas area economy as well as the excellent health of the industries that are based there.

Big oil and mining sectors do not have the same hold on the Dallas and Fort Worth areas that they do in other Texas cities.  This has actually been a boon for Dallas, as the new era of green technology and the shift away from fossil fuel dependence occurs in the US on a large scale.  The construction field has also shed thousands of jobs as Dallas, once one of the US’s real estate and business construction hotspots has cool considerably.  The city has lost a total of about 120,000 jobs since 2007, which pales in comparison to the numbers coming out of other, comparably sized US cities. 

While the Dallas area’s unemployment rate was markedly higher than the national average only a few short years ago, the trend has reversed itself and the city that has been running inverse to the national average in unemployment is continuing to do so.  As the national, state to state unemployment averages just over 10%, Dallas has been able to stay below 8% and has been able to really slow the job cuts down in recent months, likely resulting in a near-term employment turnaround.  There is little doubt that the Dallas and Fort Worth areas will be home to a spectacular post-recession boom.  The large number of high tech jobs and industries as well as the pull that the area has on many new startups and smaller technology firms is undeniable and unstoppable.